Prepare to pay for ambulance service today
Published Wednesday July 1st, 2009
$130, please | Liberals eliminated free service
An ambulance trip in New Brunswick is no longer free.
Starting today, a user fee of $130.60 will be charged when an ambulance responds to a 9-1-1 call inside the province.
As previously announced in March's provincial budget, the fee is being reinstated by the Liberal government four years after the Progressive Conservatives eliminated it.
The Liberals said ambulance usage across the province had jumped by 20 per cent each year, and that the service was being abused.
Former health minister Mike Murphy said in some cases ambulances were being used as a taxi service.
The provincial government says an ambulance user fee will raise $6 million for the province each year, with the fee recovering about 25 per cent of service costs.
Every other province in Canada has a user fee for ambulances responding to emergency calls, with New Brunswick's fees now being the same as Nova Scotia's.
The provincial government said emergency responses won't change.
"No one will be denied an ambulance in an emergency," said Meghan Cumby, spokeswoman for the Department of Health.
Instead, ambulance users will be sent a bill later.
"In the 10 business days following your transport or taking of the ambulance, a bill will arrive at your house and you'll have 30 days to pay it," said Ambulance NB spokeswoman Sophie Cormier-Lalonde.
An appeals process for people who can't afford the fee can be initiated by dialing a phone number on the bill.
The appeal, to be evaluated by the province, will be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the appellant detailing why he or she can't pay.
User fees won't apply to ambulances making transfers between hospitals, air ambulance services, social services clients, those in foster care, or any eligible clients of the extra-mural program.
"It's similar to the groups on the prescription drug program," said Cumby, detailing the protocol used for who was exempt.
Blue Cross covers the user fee for those with health insurance.
Non-New Brunswick residents will continue to be charged $650 when using an ambulance in an emergency situation.
When the budget came down in the legislature, the Progressive Conservatives immediately pounced on the Liberals for reinstating the fee.
Tory Leader David Alward said today is a sad day for the province's health-care system.
"It's the first point of contact with our health-care system," he said. "The last thing we need is our seniors or the most vulnerable afraid to make that call to 9-1-1 when they need an ambulance because they're thinking about whether or not they can afford it."
If the government thinks ambulances are being deployed for non-emergency situations, Alward said those people should be charged a few.
Ralph Smith, president of the New Brunswick Senior Citizens' Federation, said his group lobbied the previous government to see the ambulance user fee taken away.
"There's a lot of low-income seniors in New Brunswick," he said. "They will hesitate to call the ambulance when there's that kind of fee of $130. It will mean that in times when they should be calling the ambulance they're not, and it's really a health concern and a life and death situation, too."
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I was a Paramedic long before the fees were removed several years ago, and there was abuse then, and it will continue now. What they need to do is bill the abusers, and it is easy to track for "the company" by using their data base.
Every time there is a call, the patient's medicare # is recorded in the system, thus making it easy to track the abusers. Start sending them the bill, and leave the person who makes their legitimate call, perhaps once in a lifetime, alone.