By Christopher Snowbeck

Pioneer Press

The federal Medicare health insurance program winds up paying the fare for many of the ambulance rides provided by the city of St. Paul.

That’s why the city in 2012 was one of the largest single recipients of Medicare payments among non-hospital health care providers in the state, according to data released this month by the federal government.

Out of more than 19,000 health care providers during 2012 who cared for Medicare patients in Minnesota, the city’s take of more than $2 million was the ninth largest individual sum.

Whether they were providing ambulance rides or treating illnesses, the state’s non-hospital providers collected less money on average in 2012 than their peers across the country, according to a Pioneer Press analysis of the data.

Health care experts say relatively low payments in Minnesota make for a familiar story, since low use of health care services here means doctors and other providers tend to collect less overall from Medicare.

“We tend to not only have lower prices here, we tend to have lower utilization,” said Mark Sonneborn, vice president for information services at the Minnesota Hospital Association. “Where a physician somewhere else might see a patient six times per year, we see a similar patient four times — it’s just our way.”

The data release from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) covers 6,000 different types of health care services, including many provided by physicians both inside and outside hospitals. The numbers show payments to more than 880,000 health care providers across the country; collectively, they received $77 billion during 2012 from the Medicare Part B fee-for-service program.

The tally doesn’t include Medicare Part A payments, which typically go to institutions involved in a patient’s care such as hospitals and nursing homes. Released on April 9, the new data set is unique because it shows how much Medicare paid to particular physicians by name. But interpreting the numbers can be tricky.

The Medicare release makes it look like Dr. Franklin Cockerill, the chairman of the pathology department at the Mayo Clinic, is the highest-paid Medicare physician in Minnesota — with a whopping $11.6 million in payments during 2012. But Cockerill didn’t personally receive the money, said Bryan Anderson, a Mayo Clinic spokesman.

Instead, the payments represent total fees for all patient specimens tested at Mayo laboratories during the year. Cockerill’s name appeared on all claims because he the supervising physician for the clinical laboratory tests, Anderson said. But that doesn’t mean he got the money.

“Like all Mayo clinic physicians, Dr. Cockerill receives a salary,” Anderson said in a statement. “He doesn’t receive commissions on tests performed by Mayo laboratories.”

In Minnesota, 19,364 health care providers collected a total of nearly $633.6 million from Medicare during 2012. That works out to an average of $32,720 per provider, according to a Pioneer Press analysis.

In Wisconsin, 19,601 providers collected a total of $926 million for an average of $47,254 per provider, the analysis shows. The national average was nearly $88,000 per provider, according to the analysis, while service providers in Florida topped the list with an average payment of $144,205.