Legislative committee approves consultant search for ambulance billing study; orders provider survey

The Legislature's Emergency Response Services Committee voted to authorize a consultant-led study of ambulance billing and delinquent-payment reimbursement and directed staff to develop a public request for proposals to run a statewide survey of providers. The motion implements language in House Bill 1322, which appropriated $20,000 to the study. The committee also directed legislative staff to draft a second, broader study scope on evolving fire service organization and regional response (no consultant funds were attached to that second scope).

The committee majority framed the action as a practical next step after three hours of testimony and written reports describing recruitment and retention challenges for volunteer and paid emergency responders, uneven reporting of incidents, and inconsistent local funding streams. Committee staff told members the HB1322 appropriation can be used to hire a consultant to do the provider survey and stakeholder interviews required in the bill language.

Why it matters: testimony during the meeting emphasized that unpaid or unpaid-in-practice ambulance runs, low insurance reimbursement for many calls, and uneven access to training make it hard for small services to remain solvent and to recruit or keep staff. A consultant-driven survey is intended to collect standardized, statewide data from ambulance services and to interview people who left the field, giving the Legislature better evidence for policy changes.

What the committee approved: the motion authorizes legislative council staff to issue a request for proposals for a consultant to design and carry out the ambulance-service survey and related consulting work, including outreach to stakeholders and producing a final report with options for reimbursement and policy changes. Committee members asked that the consultant work explicitly include exit interviews with former EMS volunteers and staff, and that the survey capture small, volunteer, hybrid and career services.

Next steps: legislative staff will prepare the RFP and return a draft scope to the committee at the next meeting. Members also instructed staff to collect and share existing programmatic data (state reports, FCHIP and state grant distributions, county-level taxing data) to brief the consultant and to permit early analysis of trends across regions. The committee also voted to request a separate RFP-style scope to study regional fire-service organization, mutual-aid and statewide coordination; that study would require additional funding approval before contracting.

Votes and motions: the motion to authorize the ambulance-billing RFP passed on a recorded vote. A second motion to ask legislative staff to prepare an RFP scope for the broader fire-service study also passed. Both votes were recorded on the transcript and entered into the committee minutes.