Maybe someone at LCEMS should talk to the county commissioners or hospital administration about wait time. There are now "not-so-new" EMTALA/Cobra standards that dictate maximum wait times for EMS at an emergency department. If these standards aren't followed it will effect the hospitals ability to bill CMS and they can be fined. It was a bigger problem out west, where 1 hour was the normal 24hours a day for a while (holding the wall) but these new standards have fixed that problem a bit. A work in progress, but it is being addressed.
As far as EMS doing non-emergent interfacility transport: that is the system as it stands right now. The GAO just delivered a report to CMS that stated that the CMS payments for emergency medical transport are below the cost-per-call average nationally. If you want to talk about Ambulance Services not doing IFT or non-emergent work, then you have to talk about taxpayer funded, municiple 3rd service. If private EMS is still contracted to do 911, then this current system will remain the norm. If you switch to a 3rd service model, (which I think is the best, then you will see your taxes go up. Some services do off-set expenses with revenue, but this is not the norm, and the ones that do are projecting lossess in the next 5-10years because of CMS fee schedules that aren't keeping up with costs (like fuel!).
Private Ambulance/Ambulette services are not set up as "EMS" they are transport services that may have a 911 EMS contract or 2. The money isn't in 911, it's in transport - so either get the private company out of your area, and create a government based one, or you will just have to swallow the non-emergent runs. Sucks, but it's a fact.
Lastly; very early on in this thread, someone talked about not seeing PD doing private security work; ever seen a cop on the road at a construction site? :twisted: Flag men can do the same job for less, but yet there are still officers there, sitting in their car, "in case" . All public services provide some community based operations EMS is no different. And really is EMS a true Public Safety Service or a Public Heath Service? Things are interesting now in this field, for sure.
Scott, NR/CCEMTP