Oct. 8, 2021, 12:53 PM EDT
By Phil McCausland
“Companies have had to close, consolidate or come up with new strategies to answer calls, said American Ambulance Association President Shawn Baird, who added that there is simply not enough EMS personnel to cover calls in many parts of the country, especially during the pandemic.”
March 18, 2021, 3:54 PM EDT
Features Empress EMS and REMSA!
By Phil McCausland
During the height of the pandemic, a quiet financial crisis was brewing for ambulance companies.
As hospitals became overwhelmed and patients begged not to be taken to crowded emergency rooms for fear of potential infection, paramedics and emergency medical technicians began treating patients where they met them — outside homes, alongside roadways, in parking lots.
The trouble is that ambulance companies are only paid to transport people, not for treating them.
Now, an aid package in the American Rescue Plan and a new federal health care program could provide a financial lifeline for ambulance companies and herald a permanent shift in emergency medicine as a whole.
The attempt to reimburse ambulance companies began with a bill introduced by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., but the legislation was ultimately rolled into the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill. Cortez Masto voted for the plan, and Cassidy did not.
“Our first responders have gone above and beyond in caring for patients during the pandemic, and it’s just wrong that ambulance companies weren’t getting paid unless they took patients to the hospital,” Cortez Masto said.
From NBC News by Phil McCausland on December 1, 2020
Stefan Hofer’s ambulance company, West Traill EMS, in Mayville, North Dakota, has received only one or two calls that weren’t related to Covid-19 over the past two months. But he said the case count has ballooned by 20 to 30 percent because of the pandemic. At the same time, the company’s expenses have mounted, its revenue has cratered and its workforce is being decimated by the virus.
The company — which is private and supported by volunteers, a few employees and four trucks — covers more than 1,500 miles of North Dakota prairie and serves about 10,000 people on the far east side of the state.
Private EMS services, both in urban and rural centers across the country, collectively received $350 million in Covid-19 relief funds in April, but those companies said that money ran out within weeks. Months later, the need remains great as they face another coronavirus surge.
On April 15, NBC nightly news profiled the front line COVID-19 response in a segment featuring members Acadian Ambulance, Empress EMS, Medstar (MI), and the Fire Department of New York. Thank you to Lester Holt and Stephanie Gosk for sharing mobile healthcare’s value and perspective during the pandemic.
Emergency responders, used to trauma and danger, say it’s impossible to get used to their new reality during the coronavirus pandemic. “You’re coming to work to deal with death all day,” one New York EMS worker says.