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Chief Administrative Office, Emergency Medical Services and Emergency Preparedness and Response Division, recommending the Board:
1) Approve and authorize the Chair to sign Resolution 144-2023, electing for the County to voluntarily transfer funds to the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) in support of the Public Provider Ground Emergency Medical Transport (PP-GEMT) program, in an annual amount to be determined by DHCS; and
2) Approve and authorize the chair to sign a budget transfer amending the Fiscal Year 2023-24 Adopted Budget to appropriate said transfer to DHCS and increasing estimated revenues commensurately (4/5 vote required).
FUNDING: County Service Areas 3 & 7.
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DISCUSSION / BACKGROUND
The Chief Administrative Office, Emergency Medical Services and Emergency Preparedness and Response Division (EMS/EPR) provides pre-hospital, ground emergency medical transportation (“GEMT”) ambulance services through County Services Areas No 3. And No. 7. These services are funded, in part, by ambulance fees which are billed to patients, and patients’ insurance providers, including Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program.
In recognition of the fact the Medi-Cal reimbursements for ambulance services under-reimburses medical providers, the State initiated the GEMT Supplemental Reimbursement Certified Public Expenditure program in 2011, allowing California public agencies which provide ambulance services to be reimbursed a portion of their unreimbursed costs of providing services to Medi-Cal Fee-for-Service patients. The County has availed itself of this program, and received approximately $255,000 for Fiscal Year 2021-22, the most recent finalized year of the program.
Additionally, the State instituted, in 2018, a GEMT Quality Assurance Fee (QAF) program, which assess a fee on all medical transports that occur in the state, and uses the dollars collected to fund a supplemental add-on to the Medi-Cal ambulance reimbursement rates. The C...
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