County seeking proposals to assist ambulance services
The county is seeking proposals from emergency medical service providers to quickly respond to emergencies and provide life support until local ambulance service could arrive and transport the patients to a hospital.
The county commissioners on Wednesday, Sept. 27, agreed to advertise a request for proposals for advanced life support quick response services for primarily, but not only, communities north of Route 422.
Proposals are due Nov. 9 and must be submitted to Steve Bicehouse, emergency services director. The anticipated contract award date is Nov. 29. The provider would be paid from federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
Bicehouse said the struggles with staffing and reimbursements from insurance companies that ambulance services have been dealing with for years have created “an unprecedented crisis in emergency medical services” in the county and state.
As a result, ambulance services have been responding to calls outside their coverage areas and in other counties to cover for other ambulance services, he said.
The proposal is modeled after a program in place in the southern part of the county where Allegheny Health Network and UPMC provide ALS-QRS to ambulance services, Bicehouse said. The county did not create that program, he added.
Commissioner Kevin Boozel said the proposal has been a long time coming and the state Legislature is not acting fast enough to help the county.
The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania presented a study it conducted on the issue to the Legislature, he said.
Boozel noted that municipalities, not counties, are mandated to provide emergency medical services to their communities. The proposal is a stop gap remedy and not a long-term solution, he said.
Bicehouse agreed that emergency medical service is not a county responsibility, but many municipalities don’t have tax bases sufficient to provide a service. He also said the proposal is a short-term way to address the issue.
Leslie Osche, commissioners’ chairwoman, said the ALS-QRS provider would respond and provide life support until the area’s emergency medical service ambulance arrives to take over patient care and transport the patient to a hospital. Ambulance services receive payment only if they transport a patient, she said.
“Had we done it any differently, we would be cutting the feet out from under the ambulances service,” Osche said.
The commissioners will meet with municipalities to help them find ways to sustain the program in the long term, because American Rescue Plan money the county received won’t last forever, Osche said.
She said an emergency medical service academy program the commissioners are working on would help provide a long-term solution. Under that program, the county would pay students while they are taking expedited training classes to become emergency medical technicians and work in the county.
Commissioner Kim Geyer also noted municipalities are required to provide EMS service, but they don’t have the resources they need.
“Our efforts to address this at the state level went unheeded,” Geyer said.
She said Butler County is among the first in the state to try to find a solution.
Boozel said the county EMS Council, which had been inactive, reformed to help the commissioners address the EMS crisis.
