GulDukat

I don't mind answering your questions at all. Maybe you might have some better insight/advice for me.

1. My company does not have any emergency work because it is just strictly BLS Transport. We are prohibitied by county protocol from running code:3

2. I have been out of school since April 2007.

3. As far as respect goes you get the other companies like AMR who look at ya like you don't count in the EMS field, The nurse only likes you because you are taking a pt. out of her care and off to someone else, other than that she looks at you like ya ya we got this just give me a quick report and be on your way. You just really get the impression that your a peon, and people look down on you.

I was really nieve when I joined this industry, I had no clue as to how things worked and didn't have anyone in the field to talk to. I just thought an ambulance co is a ambulance co and they all do the same thing, some more than others but that's it.

I am considering putting in my app. for another agencie but wonder if it would be better to have at least 6mon of experience, right now I only have 4mon. :?

Hello,

Thank you again for your reply. As to advice, I'm not sure how good mine would be because each geographical location has it's own set of values and priorities.

So what would make sense for where I am from may not make a lick of sense to someone in California.

Let me state this right now, the one thing that I believe is universal (in other words no matter what state you work in or country for that matter) continue your education.

Attend any and every In-service, class, pracitcal, etc., etc., that you can. Read text books, even if it means going back and reviewing your EMT text. You would be supprised how much you have forgotten since you left class even though you have only been out for a short period of time.

Here let me ask, when was the last time you applied a short spine device? I bet EMT class, maybe your state practical.

If you have down moments, I know the private world that is rare and precsious, take out some equipment and practice. Get a partner to practice with you.

Paramedic school is an option.

But no matter what you do don't stop learning.

Ok there is that part, now let's see if I have any suggestions for anything else.

I guess I am to assume that your county only allows Paramedic units to transport Emergent patients? I don't have an answer for that other than the obvious, you are going to have to be a Paramedic.

Did I mention yet that you should never stop learning?

Ok here is where I am going to vere off into some, well um...., let's just say that my next viewpoint may not be agreeable with everyone. :twisted:

Here goes.

You need to be PROFESSIONAL. PERIOD. END OF STATEMENT!!!!

Now before you freak out on me and think that I am calling you un-professional, that is as far from the truth as you can be.

Here is my point. At the end of the day the opinion of others doesn't really mean crud. As long as you and your patient, their family and the staff that you work with accept you for your professional skill that is all that really matters.

Now I know that is a lot easier for me to type than it is for you to live, trust me I've been there.

But if you want a different point of view on this from an old person, I'll give it to you.

No matter where you are, no matter what service you are with, no matter your skill level someone is going to look down on you.

That's right even if you are God's gift to Paramedicine there is a surgeon somewhere who will always consider you an Ambulance Driver.

If you work for the County 911 Provider there is a Fire Department Medic somewhere laughing at you because you don't have his pension plan.

Yes, I admit where you are at it is going to lead to almost every other person involved in EMS in your area (including the wonderful E.R. Nursing staff) to stick up their nose at you and pretty much show nothing but disdain for you.

However, as of now it is just because they are prejudice against who you are with and what you do. Not who you are.

Being professional will keep it that way.

Being un-professional will take their prejudice and turn it into justification.

Professionalism begins with continued education. Have I mentioned yet that you need to keep learning? Just making sure.

At the end of the day though there comes a point in time that transporting a walker patient to the Ortho clinic for a follow up of an ORIF of a hip may be detrimental to your long term career.

The biggest pitfall that any of us in this side of the field have to be cautious of is complacency.

At some point in time you just pick Bob up from the ECF and transport him while talking to him about the war he was in and you find yourself takeing fewer and fewer vital signs. Listening to fewer and fewer breath sounds.

Be on the look out for this behavior. This will be the beginning of the end of your EMS career.

One other piece of advice I would like to pass on. Don't just listen to one person and that includes me. Talk to everyone you know about this, you are to young and to new to be already doubting your career.

I'm not saying your doubting it, however I can tell by the way you have written this that you are already disillusioned with your lot in life.

Yours is one of the reasons I started this thread. I want people to talk about this entire lack of respect from both sides to see if it's real and if it is why is it and if there is anything that can be done about it.

Keep up the good fight, don't let anyone talk down to you and keep learning. We need good caring people in the field and far fewer hero's.

Oops the evil part of me came out there at then end.

Actually thank you for responding.

I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind answering.

1. Do you not do any emergency work because your company chooses not to do this or because you are prohibited by some local law?

2. How long have you been out of class? The reason I ask is, how do you plan to keep your skills up after you have been away from class for awhile?

3. When you say you have no respect by anybody, can you elaborate a little on this? I just want to compare your feelings on this with others.

Thank you for what you do by the way. You have one of the roughest jobs in the business, I am not kidding when I say that either.

Sadly I've heard of this happening as well.

Now there is a huge huge difference between purchasing a supply item that you want versus being forced to purchase something you are required to have.

Example: Your service is required to carry a stethoscope per your state and local rules. The company you work for buys cheap sprague style stethoscopes that you think are junk so you purchase a littman cardioscope.

That would be an example of want, not need.

Example 2: Your service is required to carry Portable oxygen per your state and local rules. The company you work for provides on board oxygen but says if you want a portable you have to provide your own.

This is an example of need, not want.

I have never hidden the fact that I come from the Private sector, and yes bring on the boo's I'm one of those... ahem... administrators.

So I will say this. Any Ambulance service that requires it's workers (either payed, volunteer or other) to purchase state mandated equipment deserves to have their service shut down.

That goes for Private, Hospital, Fire Department, County, City, whatever.

But I will say this, in our world we live in, we are required to be frugal. Frugal does not mean cheap by the way.

So if your service doesn't provide every member of the department with gold plated O2 keys that does not make them a bad service.

However if they require you to purchase your own o2 keys, well then that might be an indicator that they may be a bad service.

Why do I feel a series of "you might be a bad service if...." jokes coming on?

Anyway on the overall tone of the thread I will say that frankly I am stunned. I honestly figured that we would have had far more political in-fighting or name calling or something.

This has been about like going to church compared to the fire department thread.

I'll let it ride a while longer then I think I'll throw in some thoughts on the subject myself.

Well let's deal with the first thing first.

You said

"and i am an adrenaline junkie type that cant take a desk job that i feel has no real meaning."

I invite you to re-think this entire line of thought prior to even picking up the phone to contact whatever state agency you need to check your other problems with.

EMS is much like baseball. Sure every now and then you get a double or even a homerun but for the most part you see lot's of pop flies, balls, foul tips and pitchers playing catch with the first baseman.

Well every now and then you will respond to a motor vehicle collision or maybe even a middle aged man experiencing a massive M.I. but for the most part you you will respond to a sick person who does not require your skills but needs your assessment and your compassion. You will respond to the local extended care facility for someone who was diagnosed with a Urinary tract infection three days ago and now has developed a fever.

You will respond to the local park for a child that has a rose thorn in his left knee.

That is if you are lucky enough to get on a service that provides Emergency work.

If you are unlucky enough to get to work for a private service or even a municipal service that has a transfer truck you will begin to believe that whatever mundane work you think you are doing now is brain surgery compared to what you will end up doing there.

Not trying to discourage you, I just want you to understand that while there is certainly an adrenaline rush factor in our business it is often times few and far between.

Ok, let's deal with your problems.

1. I am not familiar with the laws of Texas however the state that I am from a person who has reached the age of 18 and has no adult criminal record is not required to list any convictions as a minor as long as they are not class B felony's or higher. Again, I have no idea about Texas. Also some states give adults the ability to have their records cleaned from childhood, you might check to see if Texas is one of those.

2. This is your real problem right here. First, stop getting tickets of any nature from this day forward. It is not just the services who will not hire you, it is their insurance carriers that will not let them hire you. Most ins. company's have a seven year period that if you haven't had anything in seven years they will not hold it against you.

Non-moving violations are a little easier to get by with, depending on the company and the offense. Example ticket for parking your bike in the wrong zone usually no big deal. Ticket for not wearing proper safety gear, big deal. Insurance carriers look at that and say you are not responsible enough to drive the trucks that they are insuring.

My only other bit of advice for you is this. Research the job market in your area before you commit to this.

You have a degree in Science, most likely you will easily earn double what you would in our field.

So be sure you can even afford to do this.

See if there are even any jobs out there. If at all possible find a service that will let you ride as a third person. Don't just pick the local Fire Department or whoever provides the 911 service where you live. Find a service that does a little of everything because the likelihood of walking out of EMT class and going to a 911 job is not high.

Again, I am not trying to dump on your idea. I just want you to know what you may be facing out there.

It sounds like a valid point that maybe ambulance services can't actuallty affoard to pay their employees a good wage although I am really not familiar enough with the American system to be able to comment much on what you have said. One thing that I would say is that this seems to be a problem that could be solved with universal heathcare.

Maybe, but it could also make the problem worse. Hard to say based on the American economy.

In theory Medicare is somewhat universal health care for disabled, elderly and other circumstance patients.

However this has been one of the biggest, if not the biggest problems with health care money since the mid 90's when the gov. required providers to accept Medicare assignment.

It's only gotten worse since then all across the board.

Health care in America is a weird animal for sure.

Private ambulance services are the "transfer" jockies of EMS. They cannot be considered part of the EMS system because the employer cares little about Emergency Medical Services. The goal with private services [at least where the boss is concerned] is taking transfers exclusively. Obviously the road crews feel different, but they don't make the rules.

I have seen "emergencies" take a back seat to transfers too many times to kid myself about private ambulance services and what they represent. That's why the turnover rate is so high in private services. No EMT or Paramedic feels good about making transfers their primary focus, thus many hate what they do and where they are at. Those of us who have over 20 years remember the days when medics and EMTs were all proud medical providers, now a chimp can do what private EMS does primarily. Sure "that's where the money is" [transfers] but it isn't and never will be where my heart is in feeling like part of the EMS system. I feel like a cab driver with skills.

Obviously this was written from someone with experience in this particular field.

A few questions for you if you don't mind.

1. You say you have been around over 20 years. Have you always worked at the service you are at now? Have you always worked in the Private sector? If the answer is no, why are you there now? (btw that is not meant to be a smart @ss question although it comes out that way, I'm just honestly curious)

2. Can you describe some of the emergency taking the backseat to a transfer. Obviously you can't be to specific but do what you can.

3. Who provides the 911 service where you operate? How long have they done this?

4. Are you looking for other work? Outside of EMS even?

5. What made you want to be become an EMT all of those years ago?

I'm glad you made your post. True honest feelings and even frustration is what I'm looking for.

The reason EMT's get paid minimum wage is really simple.

First very few jobs one can immediately enter after just attending a 16 week course (some is only 2 weeks) and the costs is nominal in comparison to other professional education.

Second, since it is so easy to become an EMT, we have flooded the market so much, we have people that will work for free! Just to be able to "ride" in an ambulance and keep up their license/certification. There is no respect or demand for a profession, that allows such.

I know of Flight Paramedics that make <$10.00/hr and have to have all the usual alphabet titles and at least 5 years experience from an progressive service. The reason... they have a stack of applications, so why should they have to pay for it, when they don't have to?

Again, we our a product of our own demise! In my state, we crank out at least >500 Basic EMT's every 16 weeks for a state that only has <200 licensed EMS services. Many of these are ALS and would not consider most with < 3 yrs experience and then prefer medics.

A viscous cycle. We will not ever increase the salary, until we :

Make it difficult to enter and to exit the EMT program

Truly make it an education program and thus probably removing the EMT level altogether

Use the supply and demand method..

Compare our profession with other healthcare professions. R.T.'s, Sonographers, Nurses, etc... all increased their education level, limited those that could enter, and have a check & balances method on how many can be allowed into the program.

Again, supply and demand...

R/r 911

While there is the ring of truth in what you say, truly I agree with you btw, there is another ugly aspect to this as well. Something field providers rarely concern themselves with, and understandably so.

We have to raise the amount of money that Ambulances make.

Not just allow them to bill more, but actually increase the amount that they are paid.

I believe the avg. collection rate nationally is right around 50%, a little above or a little below I don't remember.

But you can't just demand more money from systems, providers, companys, etc., etc. when the money is not there.

EMS also self destructs often times because we don't even know what we are ourselves. Some people consider us part of health care others consider us part of Public Safety.

Until the day comes when we decide what we are we will always be an amalgamation and thus never considered a true profession.

Sorry to the original poster, I didn't answer the question.

Simply put, in EMS often times it's the only way to start.

Also let's look at your teaching money for a moment. Whoever you are teaching for and paying you (I assume either a company or a service or something) collects the money at 100% and then pays you.

I wonder if you would be making twice the min. wage in the U.S. if whoever you were working for was only collecting from 50% of the people in class and then only getting 50% from the people that pay?

I'm not saying either way, I'm just wondering aloud.

I myself work for a private ambulance company and have seen what they do and don't do.

More so what they "don't" do. It is such a hassel to get anything done at all. Its all about the money.Forget your employee's that actually make the money for you!

They don't want to pay for proper equipment and training for newbies. They are always so concerned with what other companies think of them they forget about patient care.

The pay sucks,the "insurance" sucks, and you can never find a supervisor around when you need one :x

Not to mention all the ED's and City workers think we are the scum of the universe because we don't have a fire logo on our vehicles! :evil:

I have a few....issues. Can you tell?

Sorry for going off like that! :oops:

Do NOT be sorry for going off like that. That is exactly what I want in this thread, honest thoughts and opinions.

Yours are even more important because you are there and doing this for a living.

Let's deal with two things from your post, if you don't mind.

1. What kind of equipment are they not spending their money on that you feel like you are missing? Also what kind of training are you referring to?

2. Why do you suppose that the E.D.'s feel the way they do about you? I understand why the F.D. services feel the way they do, but do you feel angry that the E.D.'s who put the patients care in your hands for their transfers and releases or whatever else doesn't have any respect for you or your co-workers?

BTW, none of these are trick questions and I am not trying to be condescending to you at all. I just would really like to know how you feel and why you feel the way you do.

Also, if the company you worked for paid better and had better benefits would you consider a career in that company or no matter what would you prefer to move on?

This is the most polite and politically correct thread I think I've ever read.

Where is the bile, the hatred, the accusations, the conspiracy, etc., etc.?????

Come on people, you know you worked for a Private Ambulance service who only cared about money so the owners could drive BMW's while the staff had to pool money together for cab fair to and from work.

Or that the Ambulance service you worked for had equipment so bad that you had to ride 45 miles in the summer heat with no A/C while your partner had to have the windows down to not pass out from the heat.

Or that they have no business being involved in anything that does not require the use of a wheelchair.

Something, anything.

Ok, we've had posts about Volunteer EMS and Fire Based EMS and I know we've talked about Private EMS before. But to the best of my memory we have not had a thread in a long long time actually dedicated to talking about Private Ambulance Services in general.

This thread is wide open to any level of discussion however going into this I want to say that I am not really looking to talk about any one provider specifically. However the realist in me knows that this will occur.

So have at it. What do you hate about them? What do you like about them? What are you curious about? Is there even one person who will say they had a positive experience with them? Do you consider them part of EMS?

I want to use this thread as a tool to try and maybe bridge the gap between providers, however again being realistic I know that there is going to be a lot of negative things said about Private Ambulances (and in most cases rightfully so).

There really are no ground rules here other than just the standard rules of the forum here at emtcity.

kind of late to the conversation but it you are interested in affordable LED lighting you should check out www.parasource.net

Kind of late to the conversation but if you are still looking for afordable LED lights check out www.parasource.net

Anybody tell me anything about Evansville?

I have a friend fixin to start college there next year.

AMR is the primary provider of service for the area. There are a couple of small fire departments that offer Ambulance service in surrounding townships. But for the city it is AMR.

Just FYI Lee Turpin is based out of the Evansville AMR so he makes certain that AMR provides top notch service in that area. Lee is a statistical wizard & runs a tight ship.

I don't know AMR around the country because I don't deal with them, but I know that Lee's group is well respected in the Indiana EMS community.

I was looking at the Indianapolis star's web page & it talked about the mayor consolidating the fire departments, or better yet that he is trying to.

The only question I have is about the new "civilian" ambulance workers that IFD is starting.

What is the advantage of this? I'm not trying to be coy or smart or anything I just am curious if anyone knows why go this route and not just let Wishard Ambulance service take over like they do other IFD areas?

I've seen online that IFD is paying 40K a year starting for Medics & I think that is slightly above what Wishard pays. So I guess the question is if this is about cost savings why the added expense for Ambulance service?

Also, & I'm not trying to get into a "fire department vs. non-fire department" ems thing, but if you hire "civilian" EMS and only the word "fire department" is on the patch & on the trucks then what is the point of having a fire department EMS?

Also, and this is just for morbid curiosity on my part, but does anybody work as a civilian EMS worker for a fire department on this board? If so are you treated like any other fireman or member of the department or is it something else.

I do have a friend who inquired about being an IFD Medic & he was told that he had to move within Marion County in less than a year. I don't know if he was right or not, for all I know he was lying just to make an excuse as to why he didn't get the job. But if it is true my guess is they are getting around the residency rule for firefighters in Indiana because they are not real firemen & thus are not protected by this rule. If that is then how does anyone feel about this?

Sorry for asking something so regional on here, but I was curious.

Of course it does! Kansas is obviously serious enough about solving their shortage that they decided to address the problem with a long-term solution instead of a short-term Band-Aid on the proverbial neck bleed.

Can you honestly not see how turning a job into a profession, with professional status and professional money, helps to both attract more people to the field, and to keep them there? And can you not see how that helps solve the shortage?

There are two problems; first, not enough people want to do this crap job for crap wages. Second, not enough people who choose to do it are stupid enough to stay with it for a career. The result is a shortage.

Kansas just solved their problem. It will take years for it to come to full fruition, but when it does, it will be one of the only states who have solved it.

While I agree with you I have to make one small statement.

Professional money will not be there until something can be done about re-embursement rates. It's hard to justify paying Paramedics professional wages when at best on an ALS 1 run your service will be paid less than $400.00 on the base rate. Sometimes much less btw in different areas of the country.

Wages can not continue to climb, along with insurance, legal expenses, fuel cost, etc., etc. until there is some form of increase in funding.

BTW, the above does not just apply to private services. This also includes municipal, non-for profits, etc. as well.

So is IFD putting Wishard out of the Ambulance business?

Also to the original poster in addition to the other services both private & fire department that have been listed you might want to check out some of the neighboring countys as well. Some of the northern bordering countys have fire department only services but there are still a few county/hospital run services as well.

Also most Hospitals now hire EMT's to do a wide variety of jobs, not just the E.R. It may not be what you want as far as excitement but most of them pay very well with decent benefits.

Good luck in your job hunt.

I know I am in the minority here but has it ever been proven anywhere that bringing in the National Registry has improved the overall quality of care in a given state?

I know when they came to our state years ago the initial fail rate was horrid. Only after the instructors learned how to teach their students to pass the test did it improve. However all they did was teach people how to pass a test, it did not improve the overall quality of EMS in our state.

I understand the N.R. from a uniformity issue and I certainly understand where the N.R. helps when people need to move from state to state.

However I've not seen where the N.R. helps make better medics.

Also I am of the mind that to take a test you should not be required to go 800 miles away to take the nearest site available to you, which has often happened in our area.

Honestly I think if the state is going to mandate you take this to obtain a certification with them then they ought to be forced to provide a test site quarterly in a central location, but that's just me.

I'll visit Quarks again when I retake Terok Nor.

I am not familiar with St. Paul EMS at all so can someone educate me on this part.

When the guy from the IAFF said that the call should have been to a BLS Ambulance does he mean that it should have been some other department or should a BLS truck from St. Paul been dispatched? I'm confused.

Question two, why did they respond an Ambulance with 5 people on it? Is that standard in St. Paul?

Was the Captain the Paramedic in charge of the patient? If not why was it his call to take people back to station?

Thanks to anyone who can answer this for me.

Having work for the big green machine for 7 years before being paroled, it is defintniely a better company looking in then looking out.

The main goal of is to keep competition out and profits rolling in.

They have been caught for illegal billing practices fines to the tune of $4 mil + to Blue Cross and $2 mil + to Medicare. They adjust patient care reports to make them easier to bill Medicare, this is after the medic has signed it, they do not alllow their medics to use certain terms regardless of the patient's condition, so as not to be denied billing by Medicare.

First thing they try do in a new parish is to have the parish / city gov't change the law to prevent another provider from coming into the parish. They also usually require a monetry guarantee from the parish to assure that a profit is made.

There are several parishes that would give an operating license at the drop of a hat to get some compeition to come in. And guess what ? Where there is competition, the response times are shorter, there are more units in the parish and routine transfer times are decreased considerably.

Acadian fed my family for over 7 years, but don't paint them as God's gift to EMS. They are responsible for may EMS problems in this state. They are responsible for many a paramedic giving up their career due to being fed up with the Acadian way of life. You would be hard pressed to find a paramedic who has left and regretted it !

That is the one thing that I am adamantly against no matter who is the provider of the 911 service. There should be no exclusive anything. If a family chooses to use another service then so be it, the government should not have the right to dictate to people who they can and cannot use for their health care.

As to the company making profit? As long as they pay their taxes & their payroll, make certain that their patient care standards are up to snuff & that their units run and have A/C in the summer & heat in the winter then nobody should have a problem with them making profit.

I am coming across as an apologist for bad private EMS so I want to make it clear now. There are many private Ambulance services that should not operate. They are a bane to our entire field & ultimately they will fail.

I don't know a thing about Acadian other than what I've read on-line & seen on the news but they seem like a reputable company that puts money into field operations. During our last hurricane season I know many large private company's that sent help immediately to the gulf area. (Government agencies did as well)

Nate of anybody on here, or in the world for that matter, you can attest that just because a municipality runs an Ambulance service it does not mean that they put the patient care as the # 1 priority.

Where to start?

#1. Using Multnomah County as an example here is a list of departments within the Multnomah County Health Department..

[align=center:b3b5cdfd50] • Health Services/Clinics

• Dental Services

• School Based Health Centers

• Coalition of Community Clinics

• Community Immunizations

• Early Childhood Services

• Healthy Birth Initiative

• Healthy Start

• STARS

• WIC

• Food Handlers Program

• Lead Poisoning Prevention

• Disease Control and Occupational Health

• Emergency Preparedness

• Travelers' Clinic

• STD Program

• Tuberculosis Program

• Medicaid Eligibility

• Community Health Council

• HIV Planning Council

• Business Services[/align:b3b5cdfd50]

Seems to me that the county is already heavily involved in Medicine in Portland, and this is the norm for most cities in the nation.

#2. The largest hospital in the city of Portland is Oregon Health Sciences University. A hospital largely funded by the state, which years ago took over Multnomah County General Hospital which was a county run hospital. In fact most hospitals in Portland receive local, state and even federal money to run their hospitals. A good example is the "Trauma System" in Oregon in which the hospitals receive reimbursements for the patients brought in as level 1 traumas. Once again, pretty standard across the country.

#3. I said there must be a balance between private cooperation's and public safety. The profit/loss interests of a cooperation should not dictate patient care. Oversight by a county/city or state agency is one way to keep cooperation's like AMR & Acadia from skimping on patient care in the name of profit.

#4. AMR has learned that oversight can tie their hands and has responded by aligning themselves with EmCare. Now they have 4,500 ER Docs on their team, who can help AMR control even more of the EMS pie. Like I said before I see this as a huge conflict of interest, I wonder how many governing bodies know that some of the MD's who sit on their EMS committees work for the same company as AMR? I would guess not many.

#5. I used to work for one of the companies bought out by AMR in 1994. I was there when AMR took over as sole provider for Portland metro area, and yes I have worked for AMR. I probably will be working for them again soon, believe it or not I like AMR. I just know that they will try to do what they can in the name of profit, and that's what concerns me about private systems.

#6. As far as "private fire departments" they get paid by the city or county they are covering. Do you really think a fire department could survive by getting piece work for the fires they work? "I'm sorry we were unable to save your house, here's a bill for $9,000, your insurance should cover it." Yeah right!

Peace,

Marty

:joker:

I guess before I go point by point over each issue with you I should explain one thing.

I am NOT opposed to government run EMS. In many cases it is the only type of EMS that has a chance of succeeding.

I've said it before on here & I'll say it again. Any agency, company or entity can succesfully run an EMS program for a community as long as they have their priorities in order & that starts with the words "patient care comes first". Profit & patient care are not mutually exclusive to one another btw.

I've seen some of the best EMS performed by a paid Fire Department Ambulance service & I have seen some of the worst EMS performed by a paid Fire Department.

I've seen good volunteer agencies & bad ones. Good county run services & bad ones. I could go on but you get my drift by now.

But to make sure I am fair about this I will say this some of the most God awful conditions I've ever worked in or seen were done by a cut throat fly by night private Ambulance service. However some of the highest standards of patient care have also come from a well established private Ambulance service as well.

Again I am not opposed to government run EMS however I am adamantly opposed to exclusive rights to EMS being done by anyone. Private, public or other.

In other words I think it is wrong for the government to limit your choice to health care because somebody has an exclusive right to an area.

AMR has a race car...

...

...which is the ultimate example of what is wrong with some cooperation's. The management of AMR has decided they need to spend millions on a snazzy race car. For what? To advertise AMR to the general public? The general public could care less about AMR they just want an ambulance to show up when they call 911. The race car is part ego and part "look how cool we are, now let us run EMS in your city."

Meanwhile they are laying off employees in a continual effort to downsize and become more profitable. In Multnomah County (Portland, OR) they came in and bought out two of the three big players in the ambulance biz. They then went to the county and convinced them that a county wide EMS provider was needed, thereby forcing the third company out of business. This is a typical model for cooperate America, kill any competition.

One last thing AMR is owned by Laidlaw, yeah the bus people, which also owns EmCare. EmCare is a nationwide ER Physicians group with over 4,500 MD's working in ER's, and sitting on EMS councils. Can anyone say conflict of interest?

I am not anti-cooperation I just feel that there needs to be a balance when it comes to the publics interest. In response to issue of socialization, are you advocating that Fire Department become a private entity? Explain to me why Fire Safety should be a City/County function but not EMS.Marty

:joker:

I will once you explain to me why Emergency MEDICAL Services should be a City/County function yet no other aspect of health care should be.

BTW, there are several private fire departments out there.

I can only assume that you also feel that the Hospital you transport your patients to should also be municipally owned as well.

Surely you also believe that the rehab units & clinics & for that matter all of medicine should be socialized as well.

You do demand that the Ambulance you respond in be produced by the government as well, right? How about the monitor you use or the drugs you push?

You can't just say that one part of an entity must be socialized & then let everything else in the system be private because the arguments that you are using to promote your socialized medicine can be applied to every aspect of your job even if you do work for a socialized system.

Again I ask, how do your employers afford to pay you guys so much money?

$136,000.00 a year? Where you the only Medic in the area or were you one of five or so that covered?

I am just stunned at the amount of money that is being made here, not that I think EMS people don't deserve every penny they make but honest to God I don't know how the people who pay you can afford this.

Is there a secret that I'm missing?