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Lavaca County approves switch in EMS billing vendor after multi-year problems with current contractor
Summary
After several years of complaints about responsiveness and transparency, the Lavaca County Commissioners Court approved notifying its current ambulance billing firm and moving to EMS Management & Consultants, a change the county estimates could return $20,000–$30,000 more in annual collections.
Lavaca County commissioners voted to notify their current ambulance-billing contractor and pursue a contract with EMS Management & Consultants, citing slow responses, lack of a customer-facing dashboard and inconsistent monthly collections.
The action came after a presentation by Tim Decker, Lavaca County EMS chief, who described problems the department has experienced since switching billing firms in 2022. “When our crew goes out on a run, they write a PCR. When you get done with that PCR, it gets sent to the billing company,” Decker said. He said the current vendor has not delivered promised account dashboards and often requires the county to wait days for answers to billing inquiries from residents. “So what we're asking for today is not necessarily to sign the contract with EMSMC, but to be able to send notification to Emergicon for that 30 day notice to say we want to be able to look about another party,” Decker said.
Decker told the court that returning to EMS Management & Consultants (EMSMC) would restore a dashboard that county staff can use to look up a bill’s status with insurers, and would secure a lower percentage fee through a cooperative procurement: EMSMC would handle collections at about 4.4 percent under the cooperative pricing the county intends to use, compared with approximately 6 percent under the current arrangement, Decker said. He estimated the change could return roughly $20,000 to $30,000 a year to the county’s EMS revenue.
County staff said the switch can be handled without a new formal RFP because the county would piggyback on an existing procurement through Bexar County ESD 2; court discussion cited Local Government Code Title 8, Subtitle C, Section 271.102(c) as satisfying cooperative-procurement requirements. Commissioners noted that new procurement thresholds recently changed and acknowledged they would follow required notifications; the court asked staff to send a 30-day written notice to the current vendor before executing any new contract.
The court approved a motion to send the 30-day termination notice to the current billing company and to pursue EMSMC; the motion was made by the commissioner identified as Precinct 1 and seconded by Precinct 2. The motion carried with no recorded 'no' votes.
The commissioners did not sign a final contract with EMSMC at the meeting; staff said a 30-day notice will be sent to the incumbent and a proposed contract will be brought back after that period.
