Travis County Commissioners Court
November 22, 2005
Item 12
Number 12 is to consider and take appropriate action on report and recommendation regarding the patient landing fee currently charged to hospitals for starflight services.
>> if you remember, we came to the court in I believe April and asked for a six-month moratorium on the landing fee. That's the fee charged to the hospitals for receiving the patient. Because we felt that that fee was creating a financial disincentive for Austin area hospitals to use starflight. The court approved that. We had a six-month moratorium that went through October. And we used the historical data, we did a comparison between 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002 to look at what our trends were. During that same period this year we transported 50 more patients this year as a result of part of the lifting of the -- the landing fee. And we exceeded our revenue expectations by 372,000 and some change there. And so it's our recommendation, and we continue to get information from hospitals that they continue to use starflight more and we're developing relationships with all of the Austin hospitals and feel that this will continue to grow. So it's our recommendation that we permanently remove the landing fee that we charge to hospitals.
>> so how much -- so are we saying that we exceeded the revenue projection by, 372,000?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay. That's a little bit better than we anticipated.
>> yes.
>> okay. Questions?
>> do you feel that this projection on the revenue side would be something that we'd be consently realizing whereby the landing fee aspect may not have to be revisited? How do you feel about that?
>> I think we feel that this trend will continue. That the relationships are continuing to improve and we will see the demand continue to increase.
>> okay. So that's what I wanted to hear.
>> for those wondering what's happening, the layman's explanation is we're doing what?
>> what we're doing right now is we were the only program operating in central Texas or even in state of Texas as far as that had a fee it charged to the hospital that receives the patient. So what we're proposing is to eliminate that fee and base the revenue and the fees solely on user fees that are charged to the patients that we transport. So the hospital does not receive a bill for a patient that they received by helicopter from starflight.
>> we try to collect the same fee just from the patient.
>> judge, this went through the e.m.s. Subcommittee and we've been monitoring this over the last six months, and I would move approval of elimination of the patient landing fee.
>> second.
>> any discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes unanimously. Thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 2:41 PM