A UP community may lose EMS service in state prison payment dispute

• An ambulance company serving 650 square miles in the UP is running out of money and may have to close
• Kinross EMS is among 15 ambulance services that are missing $6 million in payments for runs to state prisons
• The issue may arise in the upcoming lame duck session of the Legislature

A slice of the Upper Peninsula may be without ambulance service by the end of the year if the state doesn’t pony up funds the service says it’s owed for emergency services to Kinross Correctional Facility.

Kinross EMS has already cut the number of two-person ambulance crews available to cover 650 square miles in the eastern UP from four to three, and more layoffs may diminish the crews to two in the next month, EMS Director Renee Gray told Bridge Michigan Monday. If the about $450,000 it is owed for ambulance runs to the nearby prison doesn’t arrive in the next two months, Gray said the service will likely be out of money and will have to close.

That would tack on an extra half-hour for ambulance service for about 8,700 residents and 1,300 inmates currently served by Kinross EMS, and eliminate 39 jobs.

“You think I want to tell them they may not have a paycheck for Christmas?” Gray asked. “It makes me want to cry just saying it.”

The threat to ambulance service is the most glaring example of a fight over a $6 million bill between the Department of Corrections and its former health care provider, Wellpath, through which payments to EMS services were funneled. The DOC and Wellpath, which ended its contract with the state in April, both say the other is responsible for the bills for ambulance runs.

Beyond the $6 million owed to ambulance services, the state alleges Wellpath also owes $29 million to other outside health care providers for medical services to prisoners.

The state has sued Wellpath, but in the meantime, 15 ambulance services near state correctional facilities are dealing with lost revenue they need to balance their budgets, said Angela Madden, executive director of the Michigan Association of Ambulance Services.

“Most EMS barely break even,” Madden said. “To ask an agency to carry the cost of the state’s bill when they are already operating at such a low margin is unconscionable.”

Hobbled most by the unpaid bills is Kinross EMS, because a larger share of its budget (11%) comes from prison runs than other state ambulance services.

The Department of Corrections now has a contract with a new health care provider, and Kinross EMS is being paid for its current ambulance runs to the prison. But those payments don’t cover the amount that was lost earlier this year in the dispute between the state and Wellpath, Gray said.

DOC spokesperson Jenni Riehle told Bridge that the state has paid the new prison health care provider, Grand Prairie Healthcare Service, P.C. “full payment for services — which included those performed by Grand Prairie, Wellpath, and their subcontractors — fulfilling the State’s contract obligations.”

That money hasn’t made it to ambulance companies, said Madden, and “small EMS companies don’t have the resources to file lawsuits against a big corporation.

“EMS agencies should not be punished for the state not holding their contractor accountable.”

Madden said she is lobbying for the Legislature to pay the $6 million bill in a budget supplemental during the upcoming lame duck session. Her organization delivered a letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Monday pleading for help averting a “full-blown crisis.”

“We’ve received sympathy, but we haven’t had anyone step up and say this needs to be fixed immediately,” Madden said. “This is a no-brainer. I’m just asking for the state to pay their bills.”