Islip Residents Erringly Billed To Be Refunded By Exchange Ambulance

TOWN OF ISLIP, NY — Exchange Ambulance of the Islips is taking action after several town residents were erroneously billed.

At Tuesday's town board meeting, Susan Robbins, of Exchange Ambulance of the Islips, which provides ambulance services to East Islip, Islip, Islip Terrace, and Great River, said that the organization was recently made aware of an error in its patient billing procedures regarding co-pays and co-insurance for 2022.

Prior to 2022, town of Islip residents were billed for Exchange services in their taxes. In order to eliminate the tax levy, the town, in contract with Exchange, shifted to billing residents through their personal medical insurances, or a third-party billing, said Joe Ludwig, Islip Town Comptroller.

In the 2022 contract, the town opted into cover the costs of the co-pays or co-insurance of town residents, so that they would continue to not pay for ambulance services.

However, Exchange Ambulance "missed that option" because it had been selected "for the first time," said Robert Stadelman, vice president of Exchange Ambulance Corp. of the Islips in a statement to Patch.

"Therefore, in error, Exchange Ambulance billed town residents the co-pays or co-insurance," said Stadelman.

Several residents at Tuesday's meeting spoke in frustration of receiving these bills.

"It's not coming out of your pocket, the co- payments, it's coming out of the taxpayer's pocket," an irate man said to the town board. "People that are aged, sick, you're taking money out of their pockets."

Stadelman said in a statement that Exchange Ambulance is presently determining which Town of Islip residents were charged this fee in error in 2022, and will issue refunds for those residents that paid the co-pay or co-insurance.

"The point of this nefarious kind of initiative on our part, that's not what's happening," said Supervisor Carpenter. "It sounds like someone may have made a mistake, and they're going to rectify it, and we thank exchange ambulance for that. We thank the members of the ambulance company, for being there for our community 24/7."

No action is required on the part of any resident to receive this refund, said Stadelman. This error has been corrected on all new bills being issued going forward.

It is unclear how many residents were erroneously billed.