MOUNT PENN, Pa.\u00a0\u2013 Earlier Tuesday, Lower Alsace Ambulance Director Philip Salamone said ambulance crews had just learned the federal government was lifting its shutdown hold on Medicare payments.<\/p>\n
That same evening, Salamone spoke at the Mount Penn Borough Council meeting, where local leaders said the issue points to a much deeper problem facing emergency medical services.<\/p>\n
“I’m very happy with what Mount Penn is hoping to do,” Salamone said. “Mount Penn hoping to get local, state and federal legislators involved is very, very helpful. We’ve been in a struggling situation \u2014 and when I saw ‘we,’ I mean the industry itself \u2014 for the better part of the last 30 years.”<\/p>\n
Salamone said paramedics today handle far more than basic patient transport, but reimbursements haven’t kept pace with the cost of care.<\/p>\n
Ambulance companies can now reapply for funding, though payments could still be delayed by up to two weeks.<\/p>\n
“There are medications that I administer that cost more than what I’m going to get paid by the ambulance,” he said. “There are situations that are not that far-fetched that it is more cost-effective for me to hand you $200 and tell you to find your own ride to the hospital, than it is for me to actually treat you and take you there.”<\/p>\n
Mount Penn Borough Council President Rick Lombardo said he supports forming a committee with state lawmakers, including state Sen. Judy Schwank (D-11), to push for long-term EMS reform.<\/p>\n
“This is not a Mount Penn issue. This is not a Berks County issue. This is a federal issue,” Salamone said.<\/p>\n
Local officials say the reversal of the Medicare payment freeze was good news, but they call it a wake-up call to fix a system they say has been under strain for decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MOUNT PENN, Pa.\u00a0\u2013 Earlier Tuesday, Lower Alsace Ambulance Director Philip Salamone said ambulance crews had just learned the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2440,8667,8668,8666,8514,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-10857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-ambulance","9":"tag-judy-schwank","10":"tag-mount-penn","11":"tag-mount-penn-borough-council","12":"tag-philip-salamone","13":"tag-reading-city","14":"tag-reading-city-headlines","15":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}