The Pennsylvania State Capitol in 2025 Associated Press File Photo

Legislation recently passed by the Pennsylvania Senate’s Health & Human Services Committee aims to ease some of the financial burden on the state’s emergency medical service providers.

Senate Bill 1147, first introduced in January, aims to provide financial assistance to EMS agencies by guaranteeing Medicaid providers reimburse agencies for all EMS calls in which treatment is provided, even if those calls do not result in transportation to the hospital.

The lead sponsor of the bill is state Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-33rd, and it has garnered 12 cosponsors — nine Republicans and three Democrats.

The bill has not come to the floor of the Senate for a vote yet, but unanimously passed through the Health & Human Services Committee by a 13-0 vote on Tuesday.

Keith Singleton, recently appointed executive director of Quality EMS, said the bill would provide a much-needed financial boost to all EMS agencies in Pennsylvania if it became law.

“It would make a huge difference,” Singleton said. “What most of the general public don’t realize is, when you can call an ambulance for help, we have the ability to fix you where we find you and not bring you to the hospital and that helps in numerous ways: It saves you a bill for transport and it stops the emergency rooms getting jammed up for patients who don’t need to be there. The problem is, when we do that right now, we get no reimbursement for that whatsoever. ... This would make a huge difference to our service.”

Matt Nickl, executive director of Cranberry EMS, estimates around a quarter of all calls the agency responds to in a given month result in no transport to the hospital.

“There’s 25 to 30% that we don’t transport and a good portion of those are treat-no-transports,” Nickl said. “It’s not only good for the ambulance services to be able to generate some revenue or recuperate some money off of those, but it’s good for the patient, too. We bill the patient for those services. So, if the insurance company pays, that means there’s a portion that the insurance companies are going to pay and the patients don’t have to pay.”