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Henry County authorizes volunteer fire departments to bill insurers for incident responses under compassion policy
Summary
The Board of Supervisors authorized volunteer fire department billing for structural-fire responses under Henry County Code section 15-604(f); departments will invoice insurers, adopt a compassionate-billing policy and use a third-party vendor to process claims with proceeds retained by the responding departments.
The Board of Supervisors authorized volunteer fire departments to bill for certain structural-fire services and to use a third-party vendor to process billing at its May 27 meeting.
Public Safety Director Matt Tatum told the board the authority for charging for services is found in Henry County Code section 15-604(f) and that volunteer departments agreed to a compassionate-billing approach: invoice insurers but not pursue direct payments from individuals for any remaining balance.
Tatum said incident details will be extracted from the county's online incident database by the billing vendor, and collected funds will go directly into each individual fire department's account for use and audit under their normal procedures. He said the county previously approved a billing vendor at an earlier meeting.
"This is designed, to, to recover funds that are being left on the table. It's not directed to individuals," Tatum said, adding that the billing is intended to be insurer-directed, not a charge to homeowners or motorists.
Tatum previewed estimated collections as modest: preliminary estimates indicated an average collection of about $5,000 per department per year. He framed the program as a way to provide incremental financial support to volunteer departments rather than to cover major capital needs.
The board voted to authorize billing and initial fee schedules as outlined in the staff packet; the motion carried 6–0.
Staff said the Rescue Squad has operated a similar billing arrangement for about 15 years and that the fire billing will be incident-driven (only the primary responding agency bills for an incident). Tatum said if public-safety staff were the only responders on an incident, public safety could bill similarly to the volunteer departments.
