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2016 AAA Award Winners Announced

Written by Aidan Camas on . Posted in Annual Conference & Tradeshow, Awards, News, Press.

The AAA is proud to announce this year’s award winners. Awards will be presented at the AAA Annual Conference and Tradeshow Awards Reception on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Please join us in congratulating the winners.

J. Walter Schaefer Award

Randy Strozyk, American Medical Response

The J. Walter Schaefer Award is given annually to an individual whose work in EMS has contributed positively to the advancement of the industry as a whole. Randy has achieved this through his tireless dedication and service to the industry and his role in elevating the association and its members to national prominence.

Robert L. Forbuss Lifetime Achievement Award

Julie Rose, Community Care Ambulance

The Robert L. Forbuss Lifetime Achievement Award is named in honor of the first Executive Director of the American Ambulance Association. It recognizes a volunteer leader who has made a significant long-term impact on the association. Julie has held numerous leadership positions in the AAA including Membership Committee Chair, Region III Director and Alternate Director. Julie has worked tirelessly to get members of her Region to join the AAA, knowing that it is important to participate in the national organization to be part of the team finding solutions to today’s challenges in EMS.

President’s Award

Jon Howell, Huntsville Emergency Medical Services, Inc. (HEMSI)
Asbel Montes, Acadian Ambulance Service
David Tetrault, St. Francois County Ambulance District

These awards are given by the President to volunteer leaders who have shown commitment to the advancement of the AAA above and beyond the call of duty. This year the three outstanding volunteers represent tireless work on behalf of the AAA.

Jon Howell has served as the chair of the AAA’s nominating committee for 4 years and in that time has worked to grown the involvement of our members to participate in the AAA nominating and election process.  Asbel Montes has worked tirelessly as Co-Chair of the Payment Reform Committee, and David Tetrault has served as a Region IV Board or Director as well as an active participant on the Membership and Education Committee.  AAA President Hall was quoted as saying, “this award is given by the sole discretion of the President of the AAA and I cannot think of three more deserving individuals than Jon, Asbel and David.  No matter what I have asked them to do for the AAA, they have taken on the task with determination, commitment and a level of servant leadership rarely seen anymore.”

Distinguished Service Award

Brian Choate, Solutions Group
Kathy Lester, MPH, JD, Lester Health Law & AAA Healthcare Consultant
Scott Moore, Esq., EMS Resource Advisors LLC & AAA Human Resources Consultant
Brian Werfel, Esq., Werfel & Werfel, PLLC & AAA Medicare Consultant

The American Ambulance Association (AAA) is proud to award Brian Choate, Kathy Lester, Scott Moore, and Brian Werfel with 2016 Distinguished Service Awards.

The Regional Workshop team worked countless hours to create the content for the four compliance, billing and reimbursement policy workshops that were presented throughout the country. The workshops were designed to help all types of services structure their billing departments more maximum efficiency and integrity.

It is for this dedication of the team members to the AAA that we are proud to recognize Brian Choate, Kathy Lester, Scott Moore, and Brian Werfel with the 2016 Distinguished Service Award.

Partner of the Year Award

National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT)

The Partner of the Year Award is given to an EMS partner whose collaboration with the AAA enhances educational programs, legislative priorities and/or member benefits. This pas year the NAEMT has partnered with the AAA on numerous projects including Medicare Relief, EMS Compass and most recently issues a joint statement regarding Payment Reform Policies for EMS.

Affiliate of the Year Award

AVESTA

The American Ambulance Association (AAA) is proud to award Avesta with the 2016 Affiliate of the Year Award. The award is given to the vendor whose supports the programs of the association. Avesta is dedicated to solely to the practice of Human Capital Management and the development of solutions that meet the unique human resource challenges of their EMS clients. This year’s Affiliate winner has shown unconditional support of the AAA Stars of Life Program. The Stars of Life event, held annually in Washington, D.C., publically recognized and celebrates the achievements and exceptional work of EMS professionals.

CMS Publishes Medicare Fee-for-Service Provider & Supplier Lists

Written by Tristan North on . Posted in Government Affairs, Medicaid, Medicare, News.

Earlier today, AAA representatives participated on an invitation-only stakeholder call in which CMS announced the availability of two new public data sets. The first data set shows through an interactive map the availability and use of services provided to Medicare beneficiaries by ground ambulance suppliers and home health agencies. The second data set is a list of Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) providers and suppliers currently approved to bill Medicare. CMS just released the two data sets to the public.

The first data set, the Moratoria Provider Services and Utilization Data Tool, includes interactive maps and a data-set that shows national, state, and county-level provider and supplier services and utilization data that can be used by CMS to determine which geographic and health service areas might be considered for a moratorium on new provider and supplier enrollments. The data provides the number of Medicare providers and suppliers servicing a geographic region, identifies moratoria regions at the state and county levels, and identifies the number of people with Medicare benefits who use a specific health service in that region. The data can also be used to reveal service levels related to the number of providers and suppliers in a geographic region. Utilization data and geographic regions for these services can be easily compared using interactive maps.

You can access the Moratoria Provider Services and Utilization Data Tool at: https://data.cms.gov/moratoria-data
The provider/supplier enrollment data set can be accessed at: https://data.cms.gov/public-provider-enrollment

CMS Releases Ambulance Cost Data Collection Report

Written by Tristan North on . Posted in Cost Survey, Government Affairs, Medicare, Member Advisories, Member-Only, News, Reimbursement.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released its report on the feasibility of collecting cost data from ambulance service providers.  Under the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, Congress directed CMS to conduct the report entitled “Evaluation of Hospitals’ Ambulance Data on Medicare Cost Reports and Feasibility of Obtaining Cost Data from All Ambulance Providers and Suppliers”. The report can be accessed here.

The report states that due to the diverse nature of our industry with a majority of providers being small entities, traditional mandatory ambulance cost reporting is not feasible.  While it does not make a recommendation on a data collection system, the report highlights the work of the AAA with The Moran Company and will be helpful in our push for a survey approach to collecting ambulance cost data.  Here is AAA’ summary of the report, AAA Summary of CMS Acumen Cost Analysis.

The survey approach to collecting ambulance cost data is a major component of the Medicare Ambulance Access, Fraud Prevention and Reform Act (S. 377, H.R. 745) which would make the current Medicare ambulance increases permanent.  The data collected through the survey would help the AAA make data-driven recommendations to the Congress and CMS on future changes to the Medicare ambulance fee schedule.

The contractor, Acumen, who developed the report, was also asked to look to see if cost data submitted by hospital-based ambulance service providers would be helpful.  Acumen determined that the data submitted varied significantly and thus was not useful.

For questions about the AAA efforts on cost data collection, please contact AAA Senior Vice President of Government Affairs Tristan North at tnorth@ambulance.org.

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