Man on AISH spends months battling collections over ambulance bill

By Gillian Slade on October 21, 2017.

gslade@medicinehatnews.com  @MHNGillianSlade

Alberta Health Services collections department put a Medicine Hat quadriplegic through months of financial terror over a $385 ambulance bill before withdrawing the bill Friday.

Sean Macoon, 44, uses an electronic wheelchair, lives in a local group home and gains his only income from AISH.

Court action was threatened Aug. 8 and Macoon’s AISH worker had not been able to reach a resolution with AHS.

Macoon was admitted to hospital in May with acute health issues, which required a trip by ambulance. When he was discharged from hospital he said he had no way of getting home on his own.

Special Transit requires 24 hours notice to book the service, but he said even if he’d been able to arrange for Special Transit he did not have his wheelchair at the hospital and could not have been transported without it.

The only option was for an ambulance to take him home again, and that resulted in the bill for $385. He says his AISH worker tried to explain the situation to AHS and EMS but could not get it resolved. He was told there is no coverage for getting home from hospital.

The bill went unpaid. Macoon was then called by the collections department for AHS who suggested he simply pay by credit card. Macoon explained that he does not have a credit card.

An AHS letter dated Aug. 8 states: “If you choose to ignore your payment obligation, the debt may be assigned to a collection agency or referred to our legal counsel for the purpose of taking court action for repayment.”

“They told me to try very hard to pay,” said Macoon. “They called me five times.”

Macoon said there are probably thousands of people in his predicament dealing with a similar situation.

“I honestly feel like a second-rate citizen,” said Macoon.

The News contacted AHS Thursday morning and in an emailed response, the chief paramedic Darren Sandbeck said the ability to pay should not be a barrier to important medical care and that the circumstances of this case were being reviewed.

Macoon’s predicament was of concern to Ken Sauer, chair of the Palliser Triangle Health Advisory Council, who was able to determine that AHS had decided on Friday morning to waive the bill that had been sent to Macoon and that AHS was working to avoid a similar situation in future.

“A decision was made today to waive the bill for compassionate reasons while we continue to review the circumstances to better understand what happened,” read an email attributed to Sandbeck after Sauer became involved.

Macoon confirmed Friday morning that nobody from AHS had been in contact with him yet to explain the bill had been withdrawn.

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