By Sarah Roebuck
SA国际传媒
NEW YORK 鈥� A new bill in New York will require health insurance plans to reimburse ambulance providers for transporting out-of-network patients.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the 鈥淒irect Pay Bill鈥� into law on Friday,
Before this bill was signed into law, insurers could pay ambulance fees directly to customers unless they had a preferred provider agreement with EMS. EMS would then bill the customers, who were to pay them using the insurance money. However, this often didn鈥檛 happen, leaving EMS with unpaid costs.
With the 鈥淒irect Pay鈥� law in place, insurance companies are not permitted to send payments for ambulance rides to customers; instead, they鈥檒l be required to send the payments directly to the EMS provider.
Jeffrey Call, the head of the United New York Ambulance Network, appreciates that patients will no longer serve as intermediaries.
鈥淣ow, no matter if an ambulance service provider is 鈥榠n-network鈥� or 鈥榦ut-of-network,鈥� reimbursement for every response will come directly from the health insurance company,鈥� Call told WROC. 鈥淧atients are no longer forced to be the middleman in a broken payment process that oftentimes left out ambulance providers.鈥�