County incurs $2.3 million in uncollected debt

County commissioners will vote Tuesday whether to write off $2.3 million in uncollected debt this fiscal year.

The Emergency Services department had the bulk of that uncollected debt. It was unable to recover more than $2 million it was owed for responding to various life-saving calls.

Emergency Services accepts payment from insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid, but many times the patient incurs a co-payment. Sometimes those patients do not pay the co-payment, and sometimes patients do not have insurance and do not pay for their emergency service.

The county’s Environmental Services department will write off more than $340,000 in uncollected debt, which comes from its 75,000 water-utility accounts.

The county stresses that it is not absolving county residents from their debts and that it will continue to try to collect the money it is owed.

Contact Robin Roy at [email protected].