Emergency Medical Technicians

EMS generally consist of an assortment of trauma, accident, rescue and medical care and services that are provided by EMTs who may or may not work under the aegis of a city, county or other form of government (911 emergencies..., 1999). The popular television program, Third Watch, depicts EMS services in New York City, where the EMS and fire departments work hand-in-hand with each other (and with police), sharing facilities and responding separately and jointly to emergency or crises situations ranging from fires to auto and transportation accidents to drug overdoses, shootings, and in-home injuries and accidents. This image notwithstanding, not all EMS are financed by and operated by city or country government; some EMS services, such as ambulance transportation

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vent of both managed care and increased costs for all kinds of medical services, some municipalities began to bill patients, most of whom paid for services via Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance. HMOs and other health plans, responding to the increased costs of such services and the corresponding increase in 911 EMS calls, are beginning to use the "prudent layperson" approach for reimbursement; this is the same standard many HMOs and other providers use for emergency room (ER) use, and it asks the insured party to assess whether or not a reasonably prudent layperson would consider using an ER or calling a physician. Because many HMOs and other providers are now beginning to deny EMS reimbursement claims based on the notion that a "prudent layperson" would not have viewed the situation as a true emergency, city EMS providers are facing new budgetary shortfalls (911..., 1999). In Philadelphia, a public-private partnership for the delivery of EMS under the aegis of the fire department has been in place since 1988. In this plan, the city provides and staffs the EMS operations, while a private sector firm, Lockheed Martin IMS, takes care of the billing and collection effort. This reduces the administrative burden placed on
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2418
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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