The following statements are from my own experience that may or may not be replicated: On March 19, I slipped on ice and broke my hip. I managed to crawl into my home and then up the stairs to the living area and became exhausted on the kitchen floor and fell asleep. My wife had become concerned and she called the Standish EMS. I woke to see a pair of dark blue arms and two other young men scurrying about the house. Blue arms advises they are going to take me to the hospital. I told blue arms I was not going to the hospital with him and to leave my home. He became obnoxious advising me he could state I was incompetent and take me to the hospital regardless of my refusal.

Apparently he did not have any authority to do so and he contacted a sheriff to come and declare me incompetent, which he did not do. After repeatedly telling blue arms to leave I recanted my refusal as he was upsetting my wife so much that I thought she might also need to be taken to the hospital.

When discharged from the hospital I started to look into EMS and blue arms’ actions. One might think blue arms had some concern for me. I believed from our first meeting there was another agenda in trying to medicate me.

Standish has fees for just about anything. EMS charge to transport is $16 per mile, if there is some type of “advanced support” they charge as much as $1,200. In my case EMS billed $1,078.10 and Medicare allowed $558.12 and my insurance paid $111.62 total paid $669.74. This is for services not wanted in a cold, poor-riding EMS vehicle with someone I considered incompetent.

This may sound as a good deal but Standish Public Safety is already in our tax bills for $998,323, so maybe it’s not so much of a good deal. EMS collects in the EMS subscription program $15,000 for services already paid for in taxes. Town shows a revenue of $369,000 for EMS charges and is not stated where these funds are used. This artificial billing to Medicare is likely to increase Medicare’s future cost, from these overcharges.

There is some hope reported recently in the Washington Post of a study by Harvard Medical School. Stating the use of more basic vehicles and technicians instead of life support equipment and personnel. Getting the patient to the hospital in the shortest time seems to be the better way to save lives and come at a lower cost.

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