City looking to hire outside company in effort to collect more ambulance fees from patients, medical companies

DOWNEY – The city is considering bringing in an outside company to collect ambulance fees, with estimates the new company will bring in $878,000 more than the city’s finance department could.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider hiring medical billing company Whitman Enterprises. The company’s pay would come from a 5.9 percent cut of increased revenue, meaning the more money the company collects, the more it will get paid.

The city transported about 4,300 patients in the 2010-2011 fiscal year, which ended in June. During that time, the city collected about $1.5 million. Whitman claims it would have collected nearly $2.4 million.

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