Rescue squad disputes outstanding ambulance bills
The Daily Mail
Aug. 17, 2009

CAIRO—The Town of Cairo Ambulance wants the Greenville Rescue Squad to pay it roughly $16,000 owed by Greenville residents with outstanding ambulance bills that have gone into collection.

But the Greenville squad continues to refuse to pay on the basis that they do not act as an insurance company.

“If it was an obligation of ours we had agreed to in advance, we will pay it,” Rescue Squad Treasurer Jim VanAuken said. “We think it is bad policy and, from what we can tell, question the legalities of it.”

VanAuken took issue with an Aug. 5 letter from Cairo Attorney Tal Rappleyea that stated a contract Cairo had with the squad had expired.

He said the squad and Cairo had no contract that required payments to expire.

VanAuken said the squad would not have agreed to making payments without a written contract.

“It was never a contract, it was never a gentleman’s agreement, it was never discussed,” he said.

Cairo Ambulance Service and Greenville Rescue Squad, Inc. signed a Greene County Emergency Medical Service Mutual Aid agreement in 2003, which does not have an expiration date but can be terminated by either participating party.

Cairo Ambulance Chief Reay Mahler acknowledged that the 2003 agreement did not describe a payment plan, but said other emergency response services recognize the duty to pay for the services when patients do not or cannot.

“We are not asking them to do anything different than we ask other towns to do or we do ourselves,” Mahler said. “It stands to reason that if we provide a service that we get paid for it.”

VanAuken explained that the squad is funded by billing patients and through fundraising efforts and, unlike Cairo, does not bill other agencies when it responds to calls in other districts.

Squad life member Bob Lampman said the squad has no issues with services in Coxsackie, Durham and Westerlo, but only with Cairo. He said those services do not have issues with each other and again, the issues appear to surround Cairo.

The pair said the perception that they have been unresponsive to Cairo is incorrect. In a June 16, 2008 letter, they notified Cairo of their position.

“Greenville Rescue Squad does not now or expect in the future to bill other towns or EMS services for transport of patients. Since no agreement was ever discussed in regards to this situation we will not be held responsible for any bills,” the letter states.

The two services have corresponded since that time.

VanAuken suggested that perhaps towns or other services are paying Cairo for similar calls without questioning why.

According to Catskill Ambulance Chief Matthew Leibowitz, Catskill and Cairo have had a gentlemen’s agreement regarding the payments for at least five years. Representatives from services in Durham and Coxsackie did not respond to interview requests by time of press.

VanAuken and Lampman argued that by paying Cairo, responders there would essentially being paid twice for running calls in Greenville.

But Mahler said this is not the case. The money Cairo Ambulance is asking from the Rescue Squad is to offset the costs incurred they pay other ambulance services for covering calls in Cairo when Cairo’s responders are already on a call, he said.

Unless payments are received, Cairo will cancel the 2003 agreement on Sept. 1 and Greene County Emergency Control will be notified not to dispatch the Cairo Ambulance Service to Greenville except in the case of a major emergency, Mahler said.