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| Someone's is looking to score a payday. Ka-Ching! |
Sunday afternoon I made a post about a Federal Lawsuit filed against the county by the former Medical Director. I requested the County Attorney's office make the appropriate redactions so that the document could be published.
This latest complaint is the second amended complaint to an initial complaint filed by this former employee in May of 2020--with freshly-added allegations and insinuations and minus one of the original lawyers out of Louisiana and plus one new lawyer from Pennsylvania named "Darth." No, not Darth Vader. (or Darth Maul)
Some of the allegations are unnerving, and as I described in my first post the data collection effort will be huge--given significant staff turnover and the changing of EMS billing software systems in the time period covered under the second amended complaint. Additionally, the first filing was centered on alleged retaliation and the county's alleged performance of care by unlicensed, uncertified personnel--whereas this amended, second filing zeros in on the ambulance transportation allegations (that the county overcharged the Federal Government for services by coding 98% of ambulance transports as emergency and not routine--which pays a higher reimbursement to the county)
So this second amended complaint expands the allegations of the first.
I am not aware of any coding abnormalities or anomolies but we will see what the data shows. And as I mentioned in Sunday's post- It remains interesting and fascinating to me that she, the former medical director, was essentially in charge of this department for a multi-year period---and among all the drama, requests for training, requests for other things, bigger budgets, "we must have Rescue 1" etc. and even more drama-rama complaining--I don't recall this medical director once, not once, letting the board know she saw a problem with the billing/coding. Not once. She came to meetings, she complained about everything EXCEPT anything having to do with the billing. So she was in charge, never mentioned this as an issue, and is now suing for this issue?
I have asked staff about the coding issue and requested information and will be following this very closely. I'm told at least one staffer is bird-dogging this issue in dedicated fashion to allow for the county's attorneys to get relevant information in order to answer this complaint by the 10th of February.
Way more to come on this....
2 comments:
I'm tired of this entire ordeal surrounding her but as I recall, during that time actually the billing was missing claims and you had to write off millions from the enterprise funds to cover expenses.BCC had to move money from LOST to cover new ambulances about 2019 or so. That was when you all for a while went to the limit of 25K instead of 50K on purchases coming before the board.
There was a problem with the software that was purchased in parts.
Yes the guy passing out PALS certs made a mess. Maybe Weaver should have done his job of supervising public safety better, but he was in the DROP, shortimer.
Of course you have defend these lawsuits.
Real common sense for PALs is basically blow less air and don't push as hard doing compressions. The law to keep those CEU are redundant, expensive and burdensome, yet the law non the less.
EMTS are not mobile doctors on call to save people from themselves. Basically they are a function of government because they help keep the road way clear.
Edler came on with a hire from Brown, when you had merged 2 positions and was on a revenge vendetta because her friends son got drunk and walked in front of a car and the EMS guy was videod letting a practicaly dead body flop around.
So she thought she could come in as a white knight and fix the place and thought lawyers would do that. She ran up lawyer bills and keeps moving the goal posts.
Immature, thinks too highly of herself, effed up the job, one politician tried to use it as a trophy, employees got in the way.
Administrator thought DOH was moving too slow so brought in her buddies at LEO to continue to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
New SAO saw it for what it was and put a stop to it.
The whole thing was narcissists fighting to the end with lawyers all wanting a pay check.
What a drama waste of money, energy and time.
Hope the BCC. Puts an end to it and moves on.
It absolutely makes sense that ECEMS would have a 98% emergency billing rate during those years as they had moved almost completely away from providing non-emergency transports in the county. The majority of those calls during those years were completed by Lifeguard Ambulance in an effort to prioritize an efficient 911 response to the citizens of the county so that units would not be tied up on non-emergency transfers from hospital to hospital. Occasionally one would be completed as a STAT transfer or a Critical Care Emergency transfer would come in which would constitute the 2% call volume. This also explains the vast difference in emergency VS non-emergency for Lifeguard Ambulance. On top of running all the Escambia IFT (non-emergency transfers) that year they also run an IFT service in their own county and assist other surrounding counties. Seems like someone just doesn’t really understand how these things work and wants a settlement.
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