26-18 Ambulance Billing and Collection Services

The Town of Westford, Massachusetts is issuing a Request for Proposals for ambulance medical billing and collection services under contract number 26-18. The procurement seeks a qualified vendor to provide comprehensive billing and collection services for the Town's emergency-only ambulance service, which operates both Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Life Support (ALS) capabilities and handles approximately 2,300 medical calls annually resulting in roughly 1,900 ambulance transports. Key deliverables include weekly collection reports with deposit slip copies, monthly aging reports of open receivables, and fiscal year revenue data formatted for compatibility with the Massachusetts Ambulance Services Cost Report Portal for federal CPE Program funding. The selected vendor must establish provider numbers with Medicare, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Medicaid, employ Certified Ambulance Coders/Billers, maintain a Massachusetts-based headquarters with a toll-free customer service number, interface with billing software systems, and demonstrate the ability to process claims directly to multiple insurance carriers. Evaluation criteria include computer linkage capabilities, years of experience in ambulance billing, documented collection percentages between 85-95 percent, and annual ambulance claims volume. Required qualifications also include Massachusetts municipal references, no lawsuits in the past five years, and the ability to receive direct customer payments with weekly receipt forwarding. The RFP was released May 20, 2026, with a deadline for submitting questions on May 27, 2026, at 4:00 PM and a proposal submission deadline of June 4, 2026, at 2:00 PM; all proposals must be submitted electronically in PDF format to the Town Manager's Office. The contract is structured as a three-year agreement commencing July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2029, with pricing established as a fixed percentage rate of actual receipts collected, billed monthly on collections made, and is terminable for cause at any time.

The RFP does not specify set-aside designations or restrictions limiting responses to particular business classifications or disadvantaged enterprise categories. No incumbent vendor or current contractor is identified in the procurement documents. The contract will be awarded to the responsible and responsive proposer submitting the most advantageous proposal, subject to Select Board approval, with the Town Manager making the award decision. All checks and cash collected must be deposited directly into the Town Treasurer's account, requiring integration with existing municipal financial systems. The specific award value or budget range is not disclosed in the available documentation; however, compensation is contingent upon actual collections, with the vendor receiving a percentage of receipts collected rather than a fixed fee arrangement, making the contract value variable based on the ambulance service's billing performance and collection success.