Committee hears bill to publish ambulance service delivery and fee data; privacy concerns raised

Senate File 3902, introduced for the Senate Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on March 17, would require the Office of Emergency Medical Services to provide municipalities with prehospital data and to make certain aggregated information publicly available, including ambulance fee schedules.

Sen. Seeberger, the bill sponsor, said policymakers and residents should be able to examine service delivery and associated costs, especially where residents have limited choice of provider. "Residents and local officials should be able to understand the level of service being provided in their communities," the author said.

Andrew Slama, testifying on behalf of the Fire Chiefs Association, told the committee most of the data are already collected by the Office of EMS and that adding the fee schedule to public reports would improve accountability while keeping the reporting burden centralized at the Office of EMS.

Dane Meyer of the Minnesota Ambulance Association raised privacy concerns and urged careful review. He noted that detailed dispatch descriptions, response timestamps and destination information — if published at granular levels for small towns — could make it possible to identify individuals involved in a medical emergency. "Publishing response information such as dispatch reason, response details and transportation destination would make it possible for an individual involved in a deeply personal medical emergency to be identified," Meyer said.

Committee members asked whether the report would include dispatch reasons and fee levels; proponents replied that dispatch reasons are already publicly accessible to radio scanners and that fee transparency would let municipalities compare charges across providers.

The committee laid the bill over for further consideration; no final committee vote or referral was taken during this hearing.