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GAO Report on the Costs of Providing Ambulance Services The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is currently conducting a report on the costs of providing ambulance services. On June 22, 2004, representatives of the American Ambulance Association (AAA) met with the officials at the GAO who are conducting the report and provided them with background information on the ambulance industry. The GAO intends to issue a survey to ambulance service providers to gather data on the costs of providing ambulance services. The survey should be issued in the beginning of 2005. Since that initial meeting, the AAA has provided the GAO with additional material and the two organizations maintain an open line of communication. The initial report is due to Congress by December 31, 2005 and the final report by December 27, 2005. The report is the result of two separate mandates by Congress for the GAO to examine the ambulance industry. The first mandate was contained in Section 426 of the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA) and required the GAO to "conduct a study on the costs of providing emergency and medical transportation services across the range of acuity levels of conditions for which such transportation services are provided. The second mandate was contained in Section 414(f) of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Accountability and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) and requires the GAO to conduct a report on "how costs differ among the types of ambulance providers and on access, supply, and quality of ambulance services in those regions and States that have a reduction in payment under the Medicare ambulance fee schedule." While the GAO was to have the first mandate met by June 21, 2002, they received permission from Congress to combine the two reports. During the initial meeting between the AAA and GAO, representatives of the AAA emphasized that the report needs to be national in scope and include all ambulance service providers. The AAA concern was since the mandate in the MMA was specific to only examining providers in those states adversely effected by the fee schedule that those ambulance service providers in census regions which did not receive reimbursement under Section 414(a) of the MMA would be excluded from the report. The AAA received an oral assurance at the meeting from the GAO that the report would be national in scope and include providers in every census region and subsequently received a letter confirming it in writing. Please check back to this page to get the latest information and documents on the GAO report. |
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