Oklahoma Ambulance Company Receives FEMA Payment

PAWHUSKA -- Joe Weaver got to work a happy man Wednesday. It was the first day in a long time that he had a substantial amount of money in the bank.

Two and a half months after he had sent the Federal Emergency Management Agency an invoice for $105,000 for work his ambulance service performed in Texas during Hurricane Rita, Central Med EMS was paid.

"I got the money today," Weaver said jubilantly. "On Friday, I got 27 phone calls from FEMA needing information. I can quote them for you: They said they wanted to get me off their back."

FEMA came under fire last week for its slow payment for hurricane relief services performed by several Oklahoma ambulance services that the agency had hired to provide help during Rita in September.

Shawn Rogers, the head of the state Health Department's Emergency Medical Services division, said FEMA was paying smaller businesses first before moving on to larger ones, such as EMSA and Muskogee County EMS, which are owed $50,000 and $230,000, respectively.

Rogers credited publicity about the slow payments for spurring FEMA to action, but the agency did pay at least one service before any stories about the issue were published. Lifeline EMS in Broken Arrow got its money the week before Christmas.

FEMA spokesmen did not return calls Wednesday, but they seemed concerned last week when they were informed about the potential demise of Central Med, which said it might have to close within days if it did not get paid.

Charles Wadsworth, the director of Pafford EMS in Claremore, another ambulance service that wanted payment, said FEMA called him Tuesday to say that his $115,000 bill had been approved and the payment would be on its way within a few days.

Wadsworth also said that Integrity EMS of Broken Arrow had received the $230,000 it had been owed.

FEMA hired the services to provide hurricane relief in Texas for between $120 and $165 per hour for each ambulance and crew.

Kurt Krumperman, the American Ambulance Association's liaison to FEMA and other federal agencies, said that ambulance companies across the country have found themselves strapped because of the slow payments.

It was that way for Pawhuska's Central Med, which had five ambulances on the road, sent one to Texas, and had to pay its own costs of $46,000 in salaries and other expenses up front.

"What happened is that there was an audit of FEMA contracts that slowed payments down for about a month," Krumperman said.

"Some services contracted for 30 days but didn't work for 30 days. Given all the issues, FEMA stopped payment on all providers. They have started paying invoices, but it is taking them an extremely long time."

The federal government often takes its time to pay, Krumperman noted.

For example, he said Medicare generally waits 60 to 90 days. But Medicare bills are not usually large lump sums, as the FEMA bills have been.

"When you have all of your costs up front and have to wait 90 days, it can be a significant hit for any company, small or large," Krumperman said.

"You have to be prepared for that. The folks I talked to at FEMA are extremely aware that small companies have this issue of floating their expenses. It doesn't seem like it is falling on deaf ears."

Rogers said that the underlying problem, a crisis far deeper than that of FEMA's slow payments, is that nearly all ambulance companies are struggling and many will go belly-up unless they receive government subsidies.

"The bottom line is that without subsidies, they have to make 2,000 runs per ambulance per year just to break even. Small rural ambulance services can't do that," he said.

Louise Red Corn 581-8480 louise.redcorn@tulsaworld.com

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