Zinke Leads Bi-Partisan Letter to VA Secretary to Protect Life-Saving Emergency Ambulance Service for Veterans

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Today, Rep. Ryan Zinke (MT-01) and a bipartisan group of thirty Members of Congress sent a letter to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough asking him to delay the effective date of a finalized VA rule “Changes in Rates VA Pays for Special Modes of Transportation” (88 Fed. Reg. 10032) until Congress passes legislation authorizing the VA to contract emergency ambulance services.

Read the letter here.

The VA rule changes reimbursement amounts for ambulance services and reverts to the outdated Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) schedule. The CMS schedule is based on 1998 data for air transport and 2002 data for ground transport. If allowed to go into effect in February 2024 as planned, the availability of ground and air ambulances for veterans would be serious threatened. Small, and mostly rural, operators would not be able to financially function and would be forced to either shut down completely or stop offering services to the VA. Last week, Granite County, Montana, lost their only ambulance provider due to infeasibility of operating with the CMS reimbursement rates.

The members said, “The availability of air and ground ambulance transport is of critical importance to our constituents and any changes to reimbursement must not affect access to life-saving emergency care for veterans and citizens at large.”

Rep. Zinke opposed the VA rule from its finalization in February, there was the promise of negotiated contracts with VA to exempt vendors from reimbursement on the CMS schedule. However, it has since been discovered that non-VA directed 911 emergency air and ground ambulance transports will automatically be reimbursed on the CMS schedule because they are ineligible to be negotiated via contract due to lack of VA statutory authority. Zinke and a bipartisan group in the House and Senate are exploring authorizing legislation to fix this loophole.  Rep. Zinke sent a letter to Secretary McDonough in June following up about the lack of negotiations but has yet to receive a reply.

Today’s letter asks the Secretary to delay the effective date of the rule (February 2024) until Congress can coordinate with VA to develop and pass legislation to authorize the Secretary to negotiate contracts for 911 calls.

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