County closer to policy to charge back hospitals for paramedic delays

Posted January 9, 2013

A report to Simcoe County's Human Services committee this week pegged the cost of paramedics waiting more than 30 minutes to offload a patient in one of the region's seven hospitals at $599,285 in 2011, the most recent data available.

Paramedics are deemed to be delayed if it takes longer than a half hour upon arrival to complete the transfer. Simcoe County administers ambulance service on behalf of its 16 member municipalities, and the separated cities of Barrie and Orillia.

In the hospital offload report prepared by Andrew Robert, the County's Director and Chief - Paramedic Services, it's noted paramedics spent 3,655 hours above the threshold at a cost of $163.93 per hour determined through the Ontario Municipal Benchmarking Initiative.

Total time over 30 minutes per call; and its $Value

Georgian Bay General Hospital: 101 Hours; $16,500
Collingwood General & Marine Hospital: 43 Hours; $7,104
Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre: 2,745 Hours; $450,001
Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital: 335 Hours; $54,942
Southlake Regional Health Centre: 254 Hours; $41,704
Stevenson Memorial Hospital: 177 Hours; $ 29,035

In November, Simcoe County council directed its staff to develop "a methodology of charging hospitals for costs associated with hospital offload delays."

"Potential options for billing include quarterly invoices or deducting the annual amount from the capital funding amounts designated through the Simcoe County Hospital Funding Alliance, similar to the York Region practice," according to the report.

"To recover these costs the County would be required to update the fees and charges by-law and establish the parameters by way of an agreement with each hospital to identify the standards associated with the transfer of patient care, time delay data, rate per hour, method of calculation and terms of payment. Regardless of a method of allocation for recovering fees there will be a need to develop a process where the hospitals would be required to enter into an agreement.

The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care - Emergency Services Branch would share 50 per cent in any revenues received for services performed that utilized Ministry funding.

The County is projected to receive $104 K for offload nursing in 2012/2013 from the Ministry of Health. Any unspent funding received within the specified funding period must be returned to the Ministry of Health."

Click here to send a Letter to the Editor.