Funny how tax funded employees think they should get to sit around and collect a check and do nothing to earn it, if you are on duty why shouldn’t you be answering calls verses sitting on your butt playing cards or feeding your face you are getting paid either way.

If you are a volunteer and it bothers you going on calls don’t volunteer , when you volunteer that means you have the time and resources to do it for free and want to serve your community.

All those same arguments were used over billing for (then all volunteer) ambulance services. We were the first on our side of the state to do so.

There was never a time that, statistically, people stopped calling. Today’s $500-1500 ambulance bill will be a fraction of the ER bill. Sure some folks may worry about it — they’re also the personalities that would dither about calling for any excuse they could think of.

Over the last 20 years that practice of billing has become near universal in my area. It’s enabled the upgrading of services, hiring of paid crews by many towns to improve coverage especially during the workday, and for affordable Paramedic coverage for seniors. Due to a quirk in Medicare, after changes around 1999 they would not pay for our system of Paramedics unless it was billed with the ambulance trip.

A rescue, whether by the Coast Guard, a Search and Rescue group, or the local fire department is no more a humanitarian mission then the work by the doctors, nurses, and specialists and the Emergency Department the victims are going to. You darn well know the Hospital is going to charge for their work.

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/05/billing-search-and-rescue-missions-yes-or-no

“Although it remains a local decision, billing for search and rescue operations is a dangerous practice that should be avoided,” said NASAR President Dan Hourihan.

NASAR’s position:

To eliminate the fear of being unable to pay for having one’s life saved, SAR services should be rendered to persons in danger or distress without subsequent cost-recovery from the person(s) assisted unless prior arrangements have been made. The mission of SAR organizations is to save lives, not just the lives of those who can afford to pay the bill. As such, methods and means should be developed and used that diffuse the cost of humanitarian SAR operations among the many, allowing ­anyone to reasonably expect emergency aid without regard to their circumstances.

According to the release, “the idea of not billing for SAR services confuses many people. However, SAR professionals across the nation know of many instances in which someone – after an unforeseen accident, or spending hours searching for their missing companion – delayed calling for help. Each ‘remembered’ hearing, seeing or reading, ’somewhere’ that rescues and searches cost ‘thousands of dollars’ – which they could not afford. Some have even chosen not to call for help, or refused emergency help.”

To underscore this fear, the organizations cited a 2006 case in which a young hiker became stranded on Colorado’s 14,270-foot Quandary Peak. “She called 9-1-1, but asked the SAR team leader just to ‘talk her out of the area,’” noted the organizations.

“The sun had already set and cold weather surrounded her in a dangerous area of the mountain. She repeatedly said the SAR team should not come to help her. After going back and forth with her on her cell phone, the SAR team leader finally asked why she didn’t want help. She replied, ‘I can’t afford it.’ He explained that there would be no charge and she then relented,” noted the groups.

Additional examples where people initially refused help can be found in the attachments below.

“A delay can place SAR personnel in danger and can unnecessarily compound and lengthen a SAR mission,” says Mr. Hourihan. “Not calling for emergency SAR help could be as catastrophic as not calling the fire department when a small stove-top fire jumps to the ceiling and instantly fills the kitchen with flames, because the home owner’s first thought was, ‘How in the world will I pay the fire department?’”

Then-U.S.C.G. Commandant James Loy perhaps explained it best, in 1999, in the Coast Guard’s very similar position. “If the specter of financial reimbursement hung over the decision to report maritime distress, we could get fewer calls, we would get calls during later stages of emergencies, and more people would die at sea. This factor alone outweighs any consideration of how much money we might recoup,” said Admiral Loy.

Traveler footnote: Founded in 1973, the National Association for Search and Rescue comprises more than 10,000 volunteer and paid search and rescue professionals who work at the local, state and national level in land, aviation and water SAR. NASAR conducts hundreds of training courses and thousands of certification exams each year. More than 11,000 people hold any of 11 NASAR certifications in SAR operations.