Medlife Ambulance is a great company to work for!

Robb said:
We don't do dialysis transports but there are plenty of patients that cannot be transported by private auto, for a number of reasons, so BLS ambulance transport is a necessity.
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With all due respect, gurney vans and wheelchair vans are more than capable of transporting the dialysis patients that Medlife currently transports. Of course there are patients who benefit from BLS transport to and from dialysis, but a company like Medlife, who has patients just walk into the ambulance from the side door (I've seen it with my own eyes), they deserve to be shutdown for insurance fraud plain and simple.
 
Addrobo said:
With all due respect, gurney vans and wheelchair vans are more than capable of transporting the dialysis patients that Medlife currently transports. Of course there are patients who benefit from BLS transport to and from dialysis, but a company like Medlife, who has patients just walk into the ambulance from the side door (I've seen it with my own eyes), they deserve to be shutdown for insurance fraud plain and simple.
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With all due respect can you please name company's that do gurney vans transportation in City of LA and surrounding areas that accept medicaid(medical) being medicare don't pay for that service.
 
looker said:
With all due respect can you please name company's that do gurney vans transportation in City of LA and surrounding areas that accept medicaid(medical) being medicare don't pay for that service.
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Many of the IFT companies in LA also have gurney vans on the side.....Medlife ows Tranzit-line, which does both wheelchair and gurney transports.
 
Addrobo said:
Many of the IFT companies in LA also have gurney vans on the side.....Medlife ows Tranzit-line, which does both wheelchair and gurney transports.
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Please reread my question. Tranzit-line do not accept medicaid for gurney van. Plus if i remember correctly they only have few gurney vans. Rest of them are wheelchair. Majority of vehicle in NEMT industry are wheelchair van. Medicaid just don't pay anything close to what it cost to run it.
 
looker said:
Please reread my question. Tranzit-line do not accept medicaid for gurney van. Plus if i remember correctly they only have few gurney vans. Rest of them are wheelchair. Majority of vehicle in NEMT industry are wheelchair van. Medicaid just don't pay anything close to what it cost to run it.
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I just brought up the fact that gurney vans could do the transporting instead of Medlife employees dressing up as "EMTs" and taking Mr. Spielstinkens to and from dialysis, I never made any mention of medi-caid.
 
Addrobo said:
I just brought up the fact that gurney vans could do the transporting instead of Medlife employees dressing up as "EMTs" and taking Mr. Spielstinkens to and from dialysis, I never made any mention of medi-caid.
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You have to talk about it as a group. Also in LA City if you're transporting someone by insurance using gurney van, you must employee emt's. Back to insurance, being medicare don't pay for it and medicaid(medi-cal) pays crap, there is no many gurney van out there. So basically you can't substitute ambulance for gurney van. Now if medicare would to pay for it, half of all ambulances would convert to gurney. Need for ambulance would significantly drop.
 
looker said:
You have to talk about it as a group. Also in LA City if you're transporting someone by insurance using gurney van, you must employee emt's. Back to insurance, being medicare don't pay for it and medicaid(medi-cal) pays crap, there is no many gurney van out there. So basically you can't substitute ambulance for gurney van. Now if medicare would to pay for it, half of all ambulances would convert to gurney. Need for ambulance would significantly drop.
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A one week undercover surveillance operation would shut down companies like Medlife and would expose certain physcians who deem patients non-ambulatory who are capable of driving themselves.....I've had a "patient" drive over in their own car, after we took her home from dialysis, to our headquarters to pick up the sweater she left in the rig. Two days later, business as usual. C'mon man.
 
Addrobo said:
A one week undercover surveillance operation would shut down companies like Medlife and would expose certain physcians who deem patients non-ambulatory who are capable of driving themselves.....I've had a "patient" drive over in their own car, after we took her home from dialysis, to our headquarters to pick up the sweater she left in the rig. Two days later, business as usual. C'mon man.
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So this lady had a good day and drove her self. Who is to say that for ever 1 good day she got, she don't have 20 bad days. The point is if you take ambulance away there is no cheaper service to which they can switch and as either it's not available or if available is not covered by insurance which makes it unaffordable.
 
How long ago did you work for Medlife? To say that all of their dialysis patients can be taken by wheelchair is a bit of a stretch. What about pt on vents and trachs, contracted to fetal, alert x 0 or 1, neuropathy stiffened legs. Do you expect one wheelchair driver to be able to move and transport these patients? 10 - 15% could prob be taken by wheelchair but that goes with just about every ift company in the county.
 
Bottom line there is three methods of transport, two of which the County of Los Angeles regulates.
1. Ambulance transport - staffed by either EMT's, paramedics, or a combination of personnel.
2. Ambulette transport - staffed by EMT's, with a gurney. No medical equipment is in these vans, and
3. Wheelchair van - staffed by CPR-certified employees. (This option is not required to license with the County of Los Angeles).

Businesses accepting payment differs from whether transports are reimbursed.
Medicare (and some private commercial medical insurance) will pay for ambulance transport that is deemed necessary and appropriate documentation must accompany all billing for individual trips.
Medicaid (Medi-Cal) will also pay for ambulance transport and ambulette transport, yet the reimbursement amounts are significantly low. This often results in the provider electing to refuse Medicaid payment in lieu of private or commercial medical insurance payments.
Finally wheelchair vans only accept private payments – much like a taxicab. It is very rare to see insurance of any kind routinely pay for these wheelchair trips.

With this being said, it’s no wonder that unscrupulous ambulance providers are so diligent in getting Medicare to pay for patient transportation, especially dialysis patients. When a service has both ambulance and ambulette or wheelchair transportation, the idea is to always get the largest, most secure payment especially for repeat transports. Unfortunately, this leads to providers caving to the pressure and this is the argument we have seen in this thread.

EMS personnel need to ask themselves how much dialysis transport their service does, and whether it is reasonably necessary for the individuals being transported to go by their respective means. When its not, be aware of it. The provider is setting themselves up for an audit, and the employee stands to lose out on work.
 
Metro EMS News said:
Bottom line there is three methods of transport, two of which the County of Los Angeles regulates.
1. Ambulance transport - staffed by either EMT's, paramedics, or a combination of personnel.
2. Ambulette transport - staffed by EMT's, with a gurney. No medical equipment is in these vans, and
3. Wheelchair van - staffed by CPR-certified employees. (This option is not required to license with the County of Los Angeles).

Businesses accepting payment differs from whether transports are reimbursed.
Medicare (and some private commercial medical insurance) will pay for ambulance transport that is deemed necessary and appropriate documentation must accompany all billing for individual trips.
Medicaid (Medi-Cal) will also pay for ambulance transport and ambulette transport, yet the reimbursement amounts are significantly low. This often results in the provider electing to refuse Medicaid payment in lieu of private or commercial medical insurance payments.
Finally wheelchair vans only accept private payments – much like a taxicab. It is very rare to see insurance of any kind routinely pay for these wheelchair trips.

With this being said, it’s no wonder that unscrupulous ambulance providers are so diligent in getting Medicare to pay for patient transportation, especially dialysis patients. When a service has both ambulance and ambulette or wheelchair transportation, the idea is to always get the largest, most secure payment especially for repeat transports. Unfortunately, this leads to providers caving to the pressure and this is the argument we have seen in this thread.

EMS personnel need to ask themselves how much dialysis transport their service does, and whether it is reasonably necessary for the individuals being transported to go by their respective means. When its not, be aware of it. The provider is setting themselves up for an audit, and the employee stands to lose out on work.
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Your post tells me that you only know ems industry and nothing else. Lacounty do not require license for gurney van at this time. Also wheelchair van transportation is mostly done by medicaid. The people that they transport couldn't never afford private rates. In addition no private insurance pay for wheelchair transportation unless you consider kaiser contract as private insurance
 
looker said:
Your post tells me that you only know ems industry and nothing else. Lacounty do not require license for gurney van at this time. Also wheelchair van transportation is mostly done by medicaid. The people that they transport couldn't never afford private rates. In addition no private insurance pay for wheelchair transportation unless you consider kaiser contract as private insurance
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You're grammar is pretty bad in all your posts.

Many of the regulars use phones or tablets to post and we seem to make it work...

It's painful to read your posts my friend, no offense intended.
 
Robb said:
You're grammar is pretty bad in all your posts.

Many of the regulars use phones or tablets to post and we seem to make it work...

It's painful to read your posts my friend, no offense intended.
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None taken. Will try to proof read it prior to posting in the future.
 
I don't claim to know a lot about insurance, reimbursements or how it all works but it seems to me that if a company is asking you to document medical necessity for an ambulance transport and your patient is walking from their home, climbing in the side door and sitting on the bench that there's no way to do it legally...it seems like some insurance would pay for gurney vans but from what I'm gathering its not enough to run a business on. Someone also brought up a valid point that you're probably going to need two people to move a patient that truly requires gurney transport.

Like I said in a previous post, we don't do dialysis transports. Maybe once in a blue moon but I've never personally done one in two years, so I don't understand how there's such a huge market for BLS companies to survive on them alone in other areas.
 
Robb said:
I don't claim to know a lot about insurance, reimbursements or how it all works but it seems to me that if a company is asking you to document medical necessity for an ambulance transport and your patient is walking from their home, climbing in the side door and sitting on the bench that there's no way to do it legally...it seems like some insurance would pay for gurney vans but from what I'm gathering its not enough to run a business on. Someone also brought up a valid point that you're probably going to need two people to move a patient that truly requires gurney transport.

Like I said in a previous post, we don't do dialysis transports. Maybe once in a blue moon but I've never personally done one in two years, so I don't understand how there's such a huge market for BLS companies to survive on them alone in other areas.
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Robb you're totally correct on medical necessity. In Los Angeles County there are plenty of elderly people that are currently using ambulance and could instead use gurney van instead. The issue is that only medicaid pays for gurney van and rates are extremely low.
 
I just find it amusing how this thread went from whether or not Medlife really is a great company to work for to how they're seemingly about to get their county license pulled to a debate over the merits of dialysis-mobile "ambulance" companies.
 
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