Rescue Inc. In The News

Rescue hires director for fundraising
(03/16/2010)

By JAIME CONE, Brattleboro Reformer

Tuesday March 16, 2010

BRATTLEBORO -- For Rescue Inc., the main rapid response emergency care service in the Brattleboro area, making ends meet has become more difficult each year.

Rescue Inc., which has divisions in both Brattleboro and Townshend, has recently hired its first development director, Sandy Ward, to direct fundraising efforts within the southern Vermont community as well as on a regional and national level.

"I am thrilled to be joining the Rescue Inc. team," Ward said. "As a community, we are incredibly fortunate to have a state-of-the-art emergency care at our beck and call, and I look forward to bringing Rescue Inc.'s unique story to a wide array of potential funding sources."

At this time, attracting more Rescue Inc. subscribers is critical for the non-profit organization, said Linda L. Goss, chief of financial operation.

"We're really trying to focus on it this year," Goss said. "[Subscriptions are] a benefit to us but also a benefit to the community."

Each subscription costs $50 for those who have medical insurance and $100 for those who do not. A subscriber will receive three emergency and three non-emergency calls for each person in his of her household.

"If that person needs to go from a hospital to a nursing home or from a nursing home to doctor's appointment, or if you break your leg and need to go to physical therapy, we'll take you," said Ward.

One trip in an ambulance to the emergency room costs about Advertisement $550, said Goss.

"Five hundred fifty dollars is pretty average," Goss added. For somebody going to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H., the cost could rise to about $1,200 or $1,500, she said.

It's not uncommon, said Goss, for insurance companies not to cover ambulance services or to set the deductible so high that the patient is still stuck with the bill.

"You could easily have a $5,000 deductible -- that's fairly common ... I don't think the average person really reads their policy or goes through it word by word," Goss said.

In the past couple years, Rescue Inc. has seen an increase in emergency calls and a decrease in subscribers.

"That's one reason we feel there is a need to get the word out there," Goss said, adding that people who have subscribed in years past are now opting not to renew. Right now Rescue Inc. has about 1,300 subscribers when in the past, the organization has had as many as 1,600, according to Goss.

At the same time, emergency calls rose by about 500 calls last year to a total of 4,400 calls last fiscal year, said Mark Considine, Rescue Inc,'s chief of operations. He estimates that number will rise to 5,000 in 2010/2011.

Those who subscribe this year will have the peace of mind of knowing that the cost of the ambulance will be 100 percent taken care of from July 1 of this year to June 30, 2011, Considine said. The hope is that having more subscribers will cut down on the amount of people who default on their payments.

"If someone [who has not subscribed] does not have the ability to pay, then they can request charitable care, or if they don't make the initiative to take care of it, then it becomes bad debt," Considine added.

He said Rescue Inc. is bound by law to respond to every call.

"We never withhold care due to the ability to pay or any questions about insurance," he said. "We have a very high cost on front end to be prepared all the time whenever summoned to send the trucks."

To help cover costs, Rescue Inc. increased town subsidies by 1.5 percent last year and 3 percent the year before that.

"Our increase in town subsidies has been in very small amounts, knowing the pressure the towns are under," Goss said. She said despite that fact local towns have been very supportive of the organization.

"I think they are appreciative of the fact that we tried to keep the amount they needed to contribute at a reasonable amount, knowing their budgets are under stress also," Goss said.

The local community as a whole has also been very supportive of Rescue Inc. Last year when Rescue Inc. needed to purchase a new ambulance, the nonprofit saw nearly double its usual amount of charitable donations.

"We were pretty successful last year," said Goss. "People gave what they could."

But the amount of debt is still growing. According to Rescue Inc.'s annual report, 57 percent of its total billing was covered by either Medicare or Medicaid, 24 percent by private insurance and 19 percent by self-payment. Medicare paid Rescue approximately 57 percent of the amount billed to it, and Medicaid paid 41 percent of the total amount billed.

As a result, Medicaid and Medicare underpaid by $526,690, the report said.

There was also $225,851 of "bad debt" left unpaid by patients for services or insurance deductibles, according to the yearly report.

Jaime Cone can be reached at jcone@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 277.