$338,000 in Unbilled Calls Sent to New Billing Service
PRICE COUNTY, Wis., The ambulance service that serves Price County towns is working to recover $338,000 in unbilled emergency calls after discovering that the previous service director failed to submit claims to Medicare, the VA and private insurance companies for more than a year.
The unbilled calls, accumulated during 2025 and 2026, were turned over to a new outside billing service approximately two months ago. The billing service charges an 8 percent fee on collected revenue, a rate that town officials described as a bargain given the complexity of ambulance billing. As of late July 2026, only $11,000 had been collected.
The financial crisis came to light during a Town of Worcester special budget meeting on July 28, 2026, where board members reviewed the ambulance service finances in detail. Officials revealed that the service had been cut off from Medicare for a year, a fact that the previous service director concealed from the towns that fund the operation. VA billing had also been shut off.
The previous service director announced her retirement after the financial problems were brought to light and died approximately two weeks later. The billing problems began in mid to late 2022 and came to a head roughly a year before the Worcester meeting, when officials compiled figures showing a serious shortfall.
Towns Bear the Cost as Payroll Falls Behind
The ambulance service operates primarily on per capita payments from the towns it serves. Worcester pays approximately $60,000 per year for ambulance coverage. When billing revenue dried up, the service could not meet payroll.
The service owes $10,000 each to five or six towns that provided emergency funding. It cannot repay those amounts at present. Worcester is at the end of the list to be repaid because Flambeau, another participating town, has the greatest financial need.
Complicating the cash flow situation, donations and government grants flow into segregated accounts that cannot legally be used for payroll. The service has money in the bank but cannot access it for operating expenses.
The service has approximately two months of per capita funding remaining for the current year. Monthly payroll and expenses run roughly $40,000, while the service collected $11,000 in its most recent billing cycle.
How the Billing Failure Happened
Ambulance billing involves multiple payers, each with different codes and procedures. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, the VA and private insurance companies all require specific billing formats. A single error, even a misplaced comma, can cause a claim to be rejected, and payers frequently do not explain why a claim was denied.
The previous service director did not perform the billing work, allowing claims to accumulate uncollected. The new billing service specializes in ambulance claims and submits them correctly the first time, according to officials who reviewed the arrangement.
In addition to the billing failures, the ambulance service had not filed its annual corporate report as a non-profit corporation and was temporarily terminated as an entity. That status has since been corrected. The service also went more than 10 years without an annual audit after a former board chair determined the audit expense was unnecessary. The annual audit has been restored.
Recovery Effort Underway
Two co-service directors are now in place, with each responsible for learning the full scope of the position. The service had budgeted $20,000 for a forensic audit to investigate potential fraud but canceled the audit after determining the problems stemmed from a lack of doing the work rather than fraud.
Despite the financial crisis, the ambulance service maintained full emergency coverage throughout the disruption. The service recently acquired a new ambulance through a government grant that accelerated its normal replacement cycle. Towns typically replace ambulances every five years and keep them for ten. With the recent acquisitions, the service is set for approximately seven to eight years before needing another vehicle.
The new billing service was implemented approximately two months before the July meeting. Officials expect to have a clearer financial picture within the next several months as the service processes the backlog of claims. If a reasonable percentage of the $338,000 in submitted claims is collected, the service should be in a stronger financial position.
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Broader EMS Cost Pressures Across Price County
The ambulance billing crisis is not isolated to Worcester. The Town of Hill, another Price County community, has faced separate but related emergency medical service cost pressures in recent years.
In October 2024, according to Town of Hill board records, an Aspirus MedEvac invoice exceeded the amount Hill had budgeted. Taylor County ambulance service reported being more than $100,000 short on a new ambulance purchase and needed a loan. Hill had been paying the city of Phillips $5,000 per year to cover calls that its primary provider could not handle.
In June 2025, a Taylor County ambulance invoice came in at $6,967.73, roughly $4,467.73 over the $2,500 that Hill had budgeted, according to Hill board records. The board refused to pay the overage and requested an explanation. Bob Kirkley from Aspirus MedEvac attended the July 2025 Hill meeting and attributed the increase to staff changes and reorganization. The board held off on paying.
In March 2026, Hill officials discussed insurance costs for a roads supervisor and found nothing comparable available for less than $500 per month, according to board records. Switching to a different provider would have meant losing specialist coverage.
The combined pressures point to a broader challenge for rural communities in Price County and across northern Wisconsin, where small populations spread over large geographic areas strain the economics of emergency medical services. Towns rely on per capita payments and volunteer staffing models that leave little margin for administrative failure.
Worcester officials expressed cautious optimism about the recovery. The new billing service, the restored audit and the co-director structure address the governance gaps that allowed the crisis to develop. Whether the $338,000 in backlogged claims will yield enough revenue to stabilize the service remains to be seen.