“It is my understanding that a significant factor contributing to the high cost of ambulance service are the number of calls that really do not require a fully equipped ambulance and two if not three personnel. An example I have heard from a Rescue staffer was picking up someone who fell. I’m sure there are many more basic things like that. You can name other examples. I would like to hear about as many possibilities as you know of for dealing with this problem more efficiently and cheaply.”
Thank you for bringing up an important issue that Rescue Inc. faces on a daily basis: responding to calls that may not require emergency treatment and the patient transport of the patient to the hospital.
I would not say that a ‘significant factor’ contributing to the high cost of ambulance service are the number of call that do not require a fully equipped ambulance and proper staffing although there certainly are a number of calls each week that do not require an ambulance at all but some practicality on the part of the 911 caller. In your example you mention “picking up someone who fell as not requiring a fully equipped ambulance and two if not three personnel”.
Let’s look at that as a potential call. A 911 dispatcher answers the call and is told that someone has fallen. There’s no way to know if the person who fell was walking on a sidewalk and slipped or if the fall was due to a medical condition that caused them to lose consciousness resulting in the fall. Perhaps the fall was from a high elevation such as roof, yet another scenario that requires yet a different type of intervention. Obviously these are very different causes requiring different actions on the part of first responders and/or Rescue Inc. and often we do not know the details until we assess the patient at the scene.
Ambulance services are required to respond to ALL calls for service and treat each patient to the level of the care required and trained for. Regarding patients who do not require emergency medical treatment and transport, those calls are extremely costly to Rescue Inc. and there is no mechanism for capturing our out of pocket expenses at this time.
With regard to reducing costs, we are working diligently toward improving efficiency by better educating the community on what constitutes a “true emergency” (keep an eye out for information on ibrattleboro.com) as well as other changes that may help defray some of the out of pocket costs associated with these types of calls.