South Padre Island EMS sees higher revenue per call despite fewer transports, QuickMed presentation shows

Kevin Carpenter, director at QuickMed Claims, told the South Padre Island City Council that the city’s EMS billing performance improved in fiscal 2025 despite a drop in trip volume, driven by higher reimbursement per call and a shifting payer mix.

Carpenter presented month-by-month transport counts and payer trends covering November 2023 through January 2025, and said Medicare and commercial insurers each made up about 19% of payers, with Medicaid around 12–13% of payer mix. “For South Padre that’s higher but that’s not, necessarily like a red flag because again you do a lot of treatment for transports,” Carpenter said, explaining why the island’s self-pay share is higher than some agencies.

The presentation, given during the council meeting’s scheduled item on QuickMed Claims and the Quby analytics platform, showed collection and deposit trends: an average monthly deposit of about $43,160 in the 15-month window, December deposits recorded at $50,850, and preliminary January deposits at $38,500. Calendar-year totals reported were roughly $510,600 for 2023 and $560,000 for 2024; QuickMed reported $338,500 posted for 2025 so far.

Carpenter said Quby uses an 18-month payer history to forecast collections and to show how quickly cash arrives. He summarized collection pace by service date: about 28% of projected cash arrives within 30 days, roughly 54% within 60 days, 68% within 90 days and about 84% by 180 days, with the remainder typically tied to appeals or later account work.

Carpenter highlighted key performance indicators showing that, although trip volume was down (he cited a 17.4% year-over-year decrease through January), revenue per trip rose — from about $459 per trip in fiscal 2024 to about $620 per trip in fiscal 2025 — which explained why cash collections increased even as transports fell. He attributed that to an increase in higher-paying payer categories such as certain government payers and VA/TRICARE accounts.

Chief Jim Big and EMS Lieutenant Emilio Hinojosa introduced and framed the presentation for council. Hinojosa said he has worked with QuickMed since taking the EMS lieutenant position and noted ongoing collaboration with the vendor to review results quarterly. “We try to meet every 3 months,” Hinojosa said.

Carpenter also displayed aging and outstanding balances: he said most of the gross aging is in self-pay accounts and estimated about $630,000 outstanding in that category, composed of patient bills, co-pays and deductibles. He noted some month-to-month posting variability is likely due to reconciliation delays or outstanding appeals, not necessarily to systemic collection problems.

Council members did not take formal action on the presentation; the item was informational. Staff and QuickMed representatives fielded questions from council about payer mix, the timing of deposits and reconciliation processes. No follow-up motion was recorded during the meeting.