Morgan McKay is reporting for State of Politics state Senator John Brooks from Long Island has introduced a bill that would allow for insurance providers to be billed for ambulance services. Commercial, municipal, hospital, and volunteer EMS can bill insurance providers to recover operational costs, but volunteer fire departments are the only ones prohibited from billing for their ambulance services. New York is the only state which prohibits its volunteer fire services from recovering these costs. Around 90 percent of New York’s fire departments are all volunteer-based, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. "Hundreds of volunteer fire departments across our state provide their communities with ambulance service, which is a costly and manpower-intense endeavor," the Firemen's Association of New York state wrote. "In many communities, the volunteer fire department’s ambulance is the only emergency response [911] ambulance in the area." According to FASNY, allowing these ambulance services to be reimbursed by insurance companies would provide around $100 million in economic resources to fire departments around the state. Brooks' bill has bipartisan support in both houses of the legislature. Read the full story at nystateofpolitics [dot] com.