LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 1, No. 26 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
[ May 5 – 11, 2016 ]
Judy Blue Eyes plays Tally Ho
28 Controversial AT&T expansion gains traction .........................5
Schools React to Rise in Suicides BY DANIELLE NADLER
Danielle Nadler/Loudoun Now
A paramedic and firefighter EMT prep an ambulance for service Tuesday afternoon at the Loudoun County Volunteer Rescue Squad station on Catoctin Circle in Leesburg. The county began sending bills for ambulance rides last year.
PAYING THE RESCUE BILL Volunteer Squads Count the Cost of Ambulance Billing BY RENSS GREENE
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lmost a year since Loudoun County began billing for ambulance transports, the money is starting to trickle down to volunteer rescue squads. The county began sending out bills for ambulance rides for the first time last July. The chief target was insurance companies, Medicaid and Medicare, rather than residents’ wallets. Funding for ambulance services, county staff reasoned, was already built into insurance premiums and federal programs, and was just being left on the table. Exemptions and exceptions also were built into the billing for people who couldn’t
afford to pay for their transport—nobody would be sent to debt collection, and nobody’s credit rating would be impacted. The anticipated new collections—the program was budgeted to bring in $4.5 million this year, but estimates were reduced to $3.5 million in fiscal year 2017—would cover the program’s administrative costs and the rest would be sent out to help first responders. But volunteer rescue squads have worried that the billing would do more harm than good by cutting into their fundraising. “I have had people in the community ask me why they should continue to donate when, if they need 911, they’re going to be charged for it anyways,” said Purcellville Volunteer Rescue Squad President Aaron Kahn. “I just explain how, although the am-
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bulance billing is nice, expenses for running a rescue squad are still extremely high, and every dollar matters.” He said the key is letting the public know how much the work of a rescue squad costs, even at the two Loudoun stations where all the EMTs and drivers are volunteers. A new ambulance can cost $200,000, even before it is outfitted with medical equipment and Kahn said volunteer rescue squads must lean on the county more than ever for support. Now, with two quarters of billing and distribution done, the county has collected $932,445. Of that, $587,022 went back into the county through administrative costs EMERGENCIES >> 38
Four Loudoun teens have taken their lives so far this school year. That’s a big increase in a county that typically sees one youth suicide every other year. It’s prompted Loudoun public schools’ top psychologists to roll out a massive outreach effort to arm students at every high school with the know-how to recognize and respond to signs of suicidal behavior among their friends. “I’m very worried,” John Lody, director of the schools’ Office of Diagnostic and Prevention Services, said this week. “After this year, the whole rules changed for us.” Typically, every high school freshman sees a suicide prevention presentation during health class. But after the fourth local teenager committed suicide earlier this year, Lody and his team said they dropped everything to try to prevent more lives from being lost. “We went into action. We wanted to get the message out to as many as possible as quickly as possible,” he said. His team gave 400 suicide prevention presentations to 16,300 high school sophomores, juniors and seniors in four weeks, which Lody called “a massive effort.” The Acknowledge-Care-Tell booster program educates young people on not only how to prevent a friend from ending their life, but how to get help before anxiety, depression or just their high-stress school environment becomes overwhelming. “We’re capitalizing on the reality that friends of youth are more likely to know what’s going on with their peers,” Lody said.
Where will you purchase your next mattress?
SUICIDE PREVENTION >> 39
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