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Fire Departments Taking Over EMS for the Towns
I have searched for this topic on FFN but have not found a forum yet. If I missed something please send me the link so I can look at past forums.
I know of a few departments in MA that are strickly fire service departments and do not respond to EMS calls unless they are special called (mva, mvc etc) these departments are small call departments throughout MA that either have a seperate town department or a private ambulance comapny running the EMS in the town.
What are peoples thoughts on the department taking over the EMS in the town compared to leaving the departments seperate?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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It depends if the current EMS provider is failing.....
Around my way, the magic number is a 1000 calls to pay for 2-3 fulltime M-F Firefighter/EMT's from Ambo billing (cost recovery). Still going to need a backup plan for second ambulance, etc.
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Permalink Reply by EngineLadder on
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you could get more runs but if you really think about it are medic runs what you want?
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Permalink Reply by Andrew on
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My department runs EMS and Fire. However, we do have neighboring districts that run EMS and Fire seperately. I like it better in my department since it's our own people taking care of our own people, I personally learn EMS terminology and knowledge just from going on EMS alarms, and it offers me much more opportunities to make my point quota.
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Permalink Reply by Billy Lovell (Skinny) on
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My department runs Fire service in side the City and Ambulance service for the county as well as parts of 5 other counties in two states. We find it to much easier on the Fire Department due to funding from the EMS calls. Most Fire Departments in my area have gone to doing thesr as a way to fund a full time department, and have on call personal for second out calls. Plus the City gets two jobs for the price of one. But with that said we are the highest paid department in our area due to running both.
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Permalink Reply by Steve on
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EMS can be very profitable for a municipality provided that they already have adequate staffing. My department assumed EMS operations in the early 80's and we currently staff a minimum of 2 ambulances (1 ALS, 1 BLS) 24/7/365. We do approximately 2500 EMS call annually with revenue of $1 million. Thats almost 20% of our budget paid for by ambulance revenue. Private ambulance companies are lining up at our door to provide backup ambulance service as they are not required to be available but if they are they gain additional revenue. Many of the municipalities in the region are paying $250,000 or more for private ambulance companies to provide 911 service. If the call volume is there and the municipality has a revenue collection process in place, EMS revenue can more than offset the cost of providing the service. And don't forget, insurance companies are now reimbursing municipalities for other responses including fires, mvas etc.
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Permalink Reply by Russ on
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depends on the will of the fire dept to take on the problems of running an EMS system. in most communities, ems is a major cash drain. billing, standards, fleet maintenence, equipment, drugs, backboards, infection control you name it. it seems that more money goes out than comes in BUT! EMS does bring you closer to the heart of the people in your community
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Again, it depends on the volume of calls, the equipment and staffing you already have, and the will of your employees. We already had a transporting rescue that responded and provided EMS at fires, so there was no additional fleet purchase or maintenance required. Most of the equipment such as cervical collars or oxygen masks are restocked by the hospitals. Billing companies work on a percentage of collections, so they're motivated to do a good job. Providing EMS is an exceptional public relations tool, especially in these tough economic times. While many of the paid departments in our region have had large reductions in the size of their departments, our department has remained relatively unscathed due to the fact that the last 15-20 employees we've hired were paramedics, and by cutting paramedics we'd be putting our EMS service in jeopardy. Like I posted previously, our EMS division brings in over $1 million annually, so if we lost employees, we'd be losing revenue, making it a lose-lose situation for the municipality.
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