DELAWARE, Ohio — The City of Delaware has chosen the company that will bill for ambulance runs when the county’s decades-old reimbursement arrangement ends. City Council has selected Cincinnati-based Medicount Management to handle the city’s emergency medical services billing, a move city staff have described as a way to make up more than $1 million in revenue for the city, The Columbus Dispatch reported on Nov. 10.
Until this year, Delaware County had handled the EMS reimbursement service for the city. The city has been looking for a new arrangement since the county, in the city’s words in a fact sheet cited by The Columbus Dispatch, “unilaterally opted to end a decades-long mutual agreement.” The county agreement was extended to keep reimbursing the city through Dec. 31, according to the Delaware Source’s earlier reporting on the change, and the new billing service is aimed at a Jan. 1, 2027 launch.
Medicount was selected from seven applicants that responded to the city’s request for proposals, issued Sept. 9, according to The Columbus Dispatch and the Delaware Source. The company also provides EMS billing services for several other townships in Delaware County, The Columbus Dispatch reported. It will handle the specialized billing in exchange for a 4.75% share of the revenue it collects, plus other fees the city is responsible for, such as credit card processing fees, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The money is not a rounding error in the fire department’s budget. The loss of the county reimbursements is expected to create an approximately $1.1 million funding shortfall, the Delaware Source reported, and city finance procurement specialist Cindy Collins told council the loss is equivalent to the cost of funding 10 entry-level firefighter-EMTs, or two new medic units, according to The Columbus Dispatch’s earlier coverage of the deliberations. Collins also told council that, in 2026 to date, the city had not received any payments from the county under the renewed reimbursement contract, the Delaware Source reported.
Delaware is, by its own account, the outlier in its own county. Assistant Fire Chief Chris Neading told council that every other EMS transport agency in Delaware County already uses EMS billing to offset the cost of the service — the city of Delaware is the only one that does not, according to The Columbus Dispatch. EMS billing means charging for ambulance and related emergency services — transports to hospitals, calls for assistance and incidents that do not end in a transport, as the Delaware Source explained using Liberty Township’s program as an example.
What residents will actually see on a bill is the part council still has to settle in law. Council is expected to consider the second reading of an ordinance establishing the city’s EMS billing policy at its Nov. 23 meeting, The Columbus Dispatch reported. Under the approach described by city staff, billing for city residents — and for people who work within the city — would happen only through insurance, and people generally would not be billed for additional balances, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Earlier deliberations filled in more of the options on the table. City staff told council in October that they were considering insurance-only billing for city residents and a “soft billing” approach for people from outside the city, in which any balance left after insurance would be sent to the patient but not aggressively pursued, according to The Columbus Dispatch. Council had not made a final decision among the billing options at that stage, the Delaware Source reported, and the Nov. 23 ordinance reading is where the policy becomes concrete.
The change also rewrites how the Delaware Fire Department is funded. Without the county reimbursement, the department would be left with two main funding sources — income tax revenue from the city’s 2010 levy and impact fees — according to the Delaware Source and The Columbus Dispatch, and impact fees are limited to spending on new equipment. Billing revenue, conservatively estimated at about $1.3 million a year on the low end by city staff, would at least replace what the county had been reimbursing, according to the Delaware Source.
City Attorney David Moser described the county’s move to council in direct terms, as quoted by the Delaware Source: “As you recall [these reimbursements] are a historical practice, very long standing for multiple decades, that the county informed us … they were pulling that funding and would no longer be extending the term of [the city of Delaware’s] contract.” Fire Chief Tim Pyle and Neading joined Collins in presenting the vendor search to council, the Delaware Source reported.
Related coverage from NewsForce247: city governments across central Ohio are redrawing their finances and structures at the same time — read how the Columbus council overhaul raises big questions for housing development, and how the Columbus 2027 mayor’s race is taking shape as Ginther and Hardin line up.
What happens next: council takes up the second reading of the EMS billing ordinance on Nov. 23, according to The Columbus Dispatch. If the policy is adopted, Medicount’s billing operation is expected to be in place when the county reimbursement ends on Dec. 31, with city EMS billing launching Jan. 1, 2027 — and the first year of collections will show whether the projected million-plus dollars actually arrives.