MOSES LAKE - Moses Lake City Council asked city staff to rethink their reasoning behind a recommendation to hire a non-local billing service company.

The recommendation came to council last week after staff chose to outsource ambulance billing services rather than replace the person who oversees the process now but is retiring, according to City Manager Joe Gavinski.

Contracting the services will be less expensive than hiring a new staff member and will provide the city with backup services not currently available, Gavinski told council members last week.

The nature of the professional services agreement doesn't require the city to go to bid, Gavinski explained. Instead, he joined Moses Lake Fire Chief Tom Taylor and city Finance Director Ron Cone in conducting interviews and reviewing proposals submitted by three professional billing companies.

Gig Harbor-based EF Recovery won their endorsement over Moses Lake-based Omni Staffing Services or Systems Design EMS, headquartered in Poulsbo.

"The actual costs from each of the companies was pretty close on a per call basis in terms of how they charged out," Gavinski said; adding "cost was not the determining factor" in making a decision.

Omni rates are about 50 cents lower than EF Recovery per call, which would reduce costs by about $1,675 when determined using what Taylor said is a fairly typical 3,350 ambulance calls per year.

The proposed contract with EF Recovery includes an additional $32.50 charge for all accounts turned over from the previous billing company, a roughly $13,000 startup cost Omni owner Corbin Moberg told council he would not pass on to the city.

Moberg expressed several concerns with the city's process of choosing a new billing service provider, saying his company never received a request for proposals or any specifics of what services were being sought.

"I just knew they were outsourcing and so I gave a fairly general proposal," he said.

When he hadn't heard back from the city several weeks after submitting his proposal, Moberg said he contacted Cone and was told staff had decided to recommend EF Recovery.

Moberg asked council to allow him to submit a more detailed proposal, pointing out he's spent most of his career in ambulance services and even worked to help the city set up their own ambulance service protocols in 2007.

"We know we can do this. We do it now," he said.

Councilwoman Karen Liebrecht asked staff why Omni was not chosen, given the cost difference and the company's experience and local status.

"It was the opinion of my recommendation, and the opinion of the city manager, and the fire chief, that the best option for the city was EF Recovery," Cone said.

He gave council a rundown of the items taken into consideration besides price, including the type and depth of services provided, the depth of the organization, the length of operation for each organization and the background check he completed on each organization.

But Moberg said based on Cone's own list of considerations Omni, not EF Recovery, should have emerged as the most logical option.

Omni employs the same billing software currently used by the city and more than 2,600 ambulance providers around the nation, he told council. The company has more than 100 employees, with four people dedicated to billing, and has been in operation since 1998.

"EF Recovery came into business in 2005 and has been in ambulance billing for two years," Moberg said. "So if that was an issue, I'm not really sure why we weren't chosen. We've been doing this longer (than EF Recovery) with more personnel."

Moberg said city staff informed him one reason EF Recovery was chosen is that the company can offer new billing services to Moses Lake.

"I was told they have an additional ability to bill people for services that the city doesn't bill for today, and that was specifically for responses of the fire engine to car crashes," he said. "We didn't know it was a requirement but should you as a council decide to start charging for those services, we're comfortable we could come in and fulfill that need."

In a written statement given to council members, Moberg added he has concerns about "these attempts to move business away from our community while increasing fees to the remaining businesses."

Following Moberg's presentation, Liebrecht told Cone she'd like to see the city's billing stay at home.

"We're constantly telling people to shop at home and I think we need to employ our people here as well. I don't see anything that would make it not feasible to keep it here at home, unless you can enlighten me to that."

"No, that's you're decision as to what you do, either go forward with the contract or not," Cone replied. "We reviewed and looked and talked about it amongst the three of us and this was the proposal that we put forward. If you'd care to have us review the proposal we can do that."

Mayor Jon Lane asked Taylor if he could add anything to help the council make a decision, to which Taylor said he didn't have any additional information.

"I can say we did review the information, we listened to all three presentations and the services provided we felt (EF Recovery) would best suit our needs," Taylor said.

The council was unanimous in backing up Liebrecht's motion to table the decision until Omni can resubmit a complete proposal to the city, "being as they weren't aware of all the terms."