Category: Featured
National Public Health Week – PCG Thanks All Fire & EMS Agencies!
Author: Michelle Silvestre Public Consulting Group (PCG) celebrates and promotes National Public Health Week (April 3-9). We thank Fire & Emergency Medical Service (EMS) agencies who play an enormous role in public health efforts. From standing in the front lines of a public health crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, …
The Medicare Ambulance Fee Schedule Increased, But Will It Help?
Author: Kyrstyn Paulat On October 14, 2022, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued Transmittal 11642 (Change Request 12948), which announced the Medicare Ambulance Inflation Factor (AIF) for the calendar year 2023. The AIF is calculated by measuring the increase in the Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers …
How Pairing Paramedics and EMTs with Police Can Combat Rising Mental Health Crises in Communities
Author: Zachary Anta There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is the largest global health crisis we have faced in generations. The pandemic caused major implications and uncertainty on all facets of life, health, and the economy. Social isolation, inflation, and financial pressures coupled with many more crippling impacts …
Explaining the Asterisk Behind Your 2020* Data
Author: Tim Nowak 2020* will forever have an asterisk behind it in terms of data management – including call volume trending, operations-finance relationships, overtime expenditures, sick time usage, disposable supply increases, (lack of) revenue generation, and just about EVERYTHING fire & EMS related. As fire & EMS chiefs, we …
Thank you, Fire and EMS Leaders!
We appreciate all of the ways you make a difference! Living this year’s National EMS Week theme through your work every day, thank you for always “Rising to the Challenge.” With over 70 years of combined Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) field experience, our team at Public Consulting Group …
What being “essential” means
Author: Tim Nowak Being essential is not a golden ticket. It’s also not a silver bullet. At best, it’s an unfunded mandate, but that’s the start that many EMS agencies need in order to begin getting the recognition and funding they deserve. Being classified as an “essential service” through …
Grant Opportunities
PCG understands that departments are in need of additional funding to support operations. We have also bared witness to the hundreds of thousands of dollars that go unclaimed each year in grant opportunities. What is the disconnect? What are the hardships in applying for grants? That is what PCG would …
PCG’s Webinar “For Comparison’s Sake” In Review
PCG’s Public Safety Consulting Service (PSCS) team presented the webinar “For Comparison’s Sake!”, which takes a case example approach toward identifying data metrics, operational factors, financial impacts, and policy elements that could all be utilized as relative comparable points from within – and outside of – fire and EMS departments …
Is Your Department Ready for a Medicaid Audit?
Many of PCG’s ambulance clients across the country are familiar with state Medicaid agency desk reviews. These pre-payment reviews help identify reporting errors that could result in overpayment of supplemental Medicaid revenues to providers. Recently, supplemental payment programs in several states have implemented more in-depth audits, generally post-payment, that require …
Ground Ambulance Providers are Officially on the CMS Clock to Start Collecting Data
Authors: Rachel Ray and Sarah DiCicco A Brief History of Medicare In 1965, Medicare was signed into law under President Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1966, Medicare was officially implemented and around nineteen million individuals enrolled in the program during that first year. In the 1970s, Medicare eligibility was expanded …