From MPR:
Rural ambulance services in Minnesota say they are in crisis. Ambulance services rely on being able to bill a patient’s insurance, but that depends on whether they transport that patient to the hospital. In Dodge Center, many times EMTs and paramedics are responding to calls that don’t require hospitalization.
Ambulance services often fail to recover the actual costs of providing their services. According to a report from the EMS regulatory board, ambulance services collectively received $763 million less from insurance companies than the charges they had billed in 2023. The majority of that deficit came from publicly funded insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
On top of that, ambulance services rely heavily on volunteer EMTs and paramedics. The statewide volunteer subsidy was over $55 million for 2023, according to an analysis done by the regulatory board. But volunteerism rates are on the decline.
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