If your city provides ground ambulance services directly or by contract, get ready for new rules and reporting requirements for ground ambulance billing.

During the 2024 legislative session, SB 5986 passed the House and Senate with nearly universal support. Under the new law, consumers are protected from surprise billing when they use ground ambulance services in Washington state. Most of the impacts of the law fall onto insurance providers and private ground ambulance providers; however, cities that provide ambulance services or contract for ground ambulance services should be aware of new WACs and reporting requirements will go into effect soon.

The Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) is currently engaged in the rulemaking process and has made a prepublication draft of the new WACs available on their website. Comments on the draft WACs can be made directly to OIC by emailing rulescoordinator@oic.wa.gov. The deadline for submitting comments is Wednesday, September 11. AWC submitted comments to OIC early on in the rulemaking process. Those comments can be viewed here.

While cities should review all of the draft WACs, the most critical section for cities is draft WAC 284-43B-029 beginning on page 6 of the prepublication draft document. This section outlines:

• The information cities must provide to OIC including rates for service, zip codes served, applicable transport codes;
• The initial deadline for submitting information to OIC as well as the schedule for updating rates into the future; and
• The process for updating rates outside of the schedule established by OIC.

In addition to the new rules, OIC will host a Ground Ambulance Service Operater webinar to review the process for submitting local rates. The webinar will be held on Wednesday, September 18 from 10:30 am to noon and is meant for city staff who oversee ground ambulance rates for the city. Interested individuals can register for the webinar here.

It is critical for cities who operate their own ground ambulance service to be aware of the new OIC WACs and rate reporting requirements. Cities who fail to properly update their ground ambulance rates with OIC will risk losing revenue from insurance providers as they provide services to individuals.

More information on the new rules and changes can be found on the OIC website.