By Dan Linehan
Free Press Staff Writer
MANKATO — The $255 fee for a day of sobering up at the Brown County Evaluation Center is weighing more heavily than ever on the people of Blue Earth County, who end up shouldering more of its costs than the actual users.
The county paid $387,584 for the service in 2009, a 7 percent increase from the previous year and the highest total since the county began using the New Ulm facility.
There has been a small yearly increase in the facility’s fees, but the number of days paid also has been rising — 1,554 last year compared to 1,423 in 2008.
The county managed to recover about 40 percent of its costs last year from the users.
Resorting to a collection agency is rarely successful, and the county can’t deduct these costs from people’s paychecks as it can with child support. It can, however, take money from people’s state tax returns.
At the prodding of its customer counties, the Brown County nonprofit is renewing its efforts to get payment from users’ insurance companies. It recently hired a Twin Cities-based company, Billing Buddies, to help it navigate the complexity of health insurance billing.
The facility used to have staff who could bill insurance companies, Director Jill Wenzel said, but the system has grown more complicated and many insurance companies aren’t inclined to pay for detox services anyway.
For example, UCare, an insurance provider for some government plans, covers medical services in a hospital incurred by overdosing but not detox services, a spokeswoman said.
Even so, there is a general trend toward more insurance companies paying for detox, Wenzel said. Some pay at 100 percent of the cost, she said.
People often end up in the facility after being picked up by the police or going to the emergency room with a high blood-alcohol level, say .15 percent or .2 percent, Wenzel said.
Other people volunteer to go to help cope with the health effects of becoming sober.
Will Purvis, a Blue Earth County commissioner, is on the facility’s board and has been working on the insurance billing issue.
“We have high hopes that it’ll be cost-effective for the evaluation center and save the county some money.”
