By Lindsey Gemme
As the freshly elected five-member board and its new board-appointed Fire Chief Coy Amerson brave the coming new year, the Eloy Fire District is facing budget woes,
and possible shutdown of a station if things continue to get any worse.
At the end of the past state legislative session last April, a bill was passed allowing AHCCCS to set its own reimbursement rates to ambulance companies, rather than the Department of Health Services as is done currently.
In the last few years, AHCCCS reimbursements have already decreased from 80 percent to 68 percent.
But the new bill allowing AHCCCS to set their own rates, “means it’s kind of like the fox watching the hen,” Chief Amerson explained.
“They’re going to set their rates so as to not increase their expenditures, but that’s probably going to mean less money to ambulance companies. It’s got all the ambulance companies very concerned. The concern for us is, if they reduce our reimbursement rates any more, it may not be sustainable to keep open both stations. It just depends on how much they cut it.”
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