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Entire tax abatement applied to VCAD loan
Nevada Daily Mail
Abated penalties and interest totaling $62,853 have been returned to the Vernon County Ambulance District from the Internal Revenue Service. This return is the result of a letter sent to the IRS from VCAD explaining the situation in 2015 that lead to the non-payment of taxes.
Interim director Leland Splitter asked the board what the district should do with the money, and following some discussion, the board voted to apply the entirety of the $62,853 to the principal of the loan with Heritage State Bank. The loan from HSB was used to pay taxes owed by the district to the Internal Revenue Service and the State of Missouri.
Board member Chris Mason said this will shorten the term of the loan. Board chairperson Mark Humphrey said that by applying the $62,000 to the loan, the district will ultimately save approximately $90,000.
B.G. Wolfe from DSWA, the firm that conducted the recent audit, was present and addressed the board, "I would love to be able to present the audit, but counsel has advised us to not present the results until something happens in the investigation."
Mason asked Wolfe if he had ever run into a similar situation during his career to which Wolfe answered, "No." Wolfe explained that in the past, incidents investigated by his firm involving criminal activity resulted in charges being filed in a shorter amount of time.
The board approved the election results. Jim Hibbs ran unopposed and was sworn in. The subdistrict five seat was open and available for write-ins. The single write-in vote cast was for former VCAD director James Mckenzie who was terminated in October 2015. The Vernon County Clerk's office has certified Mckenzie as eligible for the seat and accordingly, VCAD has sent Mckenzie a letter informing him of his election to the subdistrict five seat on the board. Mckenzie has until May 1 to answer the letter before the board will have to take other measures to fill the seat.
In other business, following the certification of the election results, the board was reorganized. Humphrey was nominated and selected to continue as board chairperson. Mason and Mike Harris traded seats with Mason becoming treasurer and Harris becoming the vice-chairperson.
With the pending dissolution of Western Missouri 911 Dispatch, that board has asked that contract payments be made monthly and not quarterly as per the contract. The 911 board had planned to turn over all operations to Vernon County by April 1, but this change has been delayed.
Vernon County will continue to handle 911 calls for VCAD, as well as the associated radio traffic, and record keeping. VCAD's annual costs for dispatch services will remain $25,000 through Vernon County. The residents of Vernon County should not see any change in services rendered as a result of the change in dispatch entities.
Humphrey presented outgoing board member Darrell Hillier with a plaque and thanked him for his nine years of service to VCAD and the residents of Vernon County. A round of applause and handshakes followed.
Splitter told the board that Physio-Control, the company that makes the Lifepak 12 and Lifepak 15 monitors the district currently uses, will stop supporting the Lifepak 12 this November. The Lifepak 12 platform has reached the limits of its upgrade potential.
Splitter explained several options the board could choose from in moving forward. The out of date Lifepak 12s can be traded in towards the purchase of new Lifepak 15s. Another option is to lease five Phillips monitors on a five-year contract. An advantage to the Phillips monitor is that the paramedic will be able to see a real-time 12-lead electrocardiogram, on the screen rather than relying on a delayed print out. The board will have to decide how to move forward on this issue by fall.
The phone service for the building has been switched from AT&T to Birch Communications. This change has reduced the districts monthly phone cost from almost $2,000 to less than $400.
The district is losing its employee health insurance plan on July 1. Splitter is researching alternative choices.
The district voted to switch from using the current AmbuPro patient care reporting software to the Zoll software used by Specialized Billing, the district's patient billing contractor. The change will result in an increase of two percent to the billing contractor's share of the patient's bill setting the total at 10 percent.
This change will allow the billing contractor access to more information written into the patient care report by the ambulance crew and allow better, itemized billing. With the current software, the billing contractor cannot see all of the data the ambulance crews are loading into the computer.
According to Splitter, before outsourcing patient billing, the district billed patients transported to locations in Joplin an average of $2,200 to their insurance, and might have seen a return of $1,500. The billing contractor, through itemized billing, is submitting bills of approximately $4,500 for a transfer to Joplin and they are collecting almost 90 percent of the amount billed to commercial insurance. Medicaid and Medicare payments remain the same.
Ambulances from the district responded to 228 calls for service in March, including 51 transfers. As of the end of March, the total calls for service for 2016 are 663.
Lastly, the board discussed with legal counsel Kendall Vickers, the best way to go about getting district and employee property back that is in the possession of former director Mckenzie. Vickers said this would probably have to be dealt with as a civil matter.