Billing for emergency medical services

For residents of the Black Forest Fire Rescue Protection District, property taxes pay the costs of on-scene medical evaluation, and most on-scene emergency treatment.

If you call 9-1-1 to send us to your home, we will evaluate your condition as well as we can with the personnel and equipment on our ambulance. If you then choose to not go to the hospital, there is no charge for that visit.

Fees for ambulance transport

Ambulance transport is not funded by your property taxes. Because of the high cost of operating and insuring an ambulance service, we must charge a fee for taking a patient to the hospital and providing care on the way.

For residents of our fire district, our ambulance service waives up to $400 in co-pay and deductibles, or $400 of the transport fee for residents who do not have insurance. 

Fees for some in-home services

We also must bill for in-home treatment that uses expensive equipment or medications. This policy is consistent with those of other fire departments and ambulance services.

In-home treatments often save the patient an expensive ambulance transport ($600 to $1,000) and an expensive emergency room visit ($1,000 - $5,000). The most common example is a diabetic emergency, which we we often correct quickly by giving intravenous sugar and special medications. However, one of those medications costs $81 per dose.

We also provide a great deal of costly treatment before we transfer a critical patient to a helicopter ambulance. Therefore, we also bill for the cost of special supplies in these cases.

By recovering some of the costs of our most expensive on-scene care, we can continue to provide economical service to the great majority of our residents.