Emergency ambulance service start up ‘on time and on budget’

 

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

Five months after agreeing to take over emergency ambulance and medical services – and facing a rapidly approaching deadline to implement an emergency services program – Key West city officials say the huge undertaking is on time and on budget.

City commissioners voted to approve staff recommendations on hiring a medical director and an outside emergency services billing agency at their Nov. 18 meeting, as well as purchasing stretchers and medical “stair chairs” to equip the four ambulances purchased previously. City Commissioner Mark Rossi expressed concern about the growing number of expenditures commissioners are being asked to approve to outfit the new city emergency management services (EMS) department, overseen by the Key West Fire Department.

“Is there anybody paying attention to how much money we’re spending to outfit all these ambulances and what the true cost is that it will cost us to do this? I know we need the equipment to do the job. But we need to keep track of what we’re spending,” Rossi said.

Key West EMS Division Chief Edward Perez, who is overseeing building the new department, assured commissioners that the project, estimated to cost $1.2 million in the first year, is on track with initial expense estimates and that all spending is being watched “very closely.” So far, $540,000 has been spent purchasing four ambulances and four cardiac monitors.

“This [stretchers and stair chairs] should be our last equipment purchase. Everything else is medications, IV supplies, personnel and uniforms,” said Perez, who will be hiring 16 full-time fire fighter paramedics.

“This is a huge job,” said Commissioner Teri Johnston. “I know we all want to stay on top of it.”

City Manager Jim Scholl will now begin contract negotiations with the top-ranked medical director and billing agency. Ambulance Medical Billing (AMB), a Paducah, Kentucky, billing agency with more than 100 EMS clients, will be offered a one year contract with two, one-year extensions. AMB will charge the city 3.5 percent of net service collections, with Medicaid claims being charged a flat $7. Those rates were the lowest of the nine billing agencies that submitted proposals.

The medical director position will be offered to the team of Dr. Eric Herrera and Dr. Bruce Robinson Guerdan at an annual fee of $25,000. Herrera is currently the medical director of the Lower Keys Medical Center emergency room and Guerdan is the retired State Air Surgeon with the Florida Air National Guard. Herrera told city commissioners that he and Guerdan will be available to take calls from emergency paramedics 24 hours a day.

“When we say we’re available, we can answer questions, we can intervene in a situation, we can take turns. That would be the extent to which we are available,” he said, adding that medical questions are usually directed to the doctors on duty in the hospital emergency room that the ambulance will use.

Assistant City Manager Sarah Hannah-Spurlock said the two medical directors will be offered the same one-year contract with two, one-year extensions as the billing agency.

“We felt that because this is our start up and it is so critical, we want to make sure we have the right people in place. We don’t want to have to wait three years if it’s not working out,” Hannah-Spurlock said.

City officials voted in June to take over ambulance and emergency services currently being provided by Care Ambulance, which told the city it would not renew its contract as of March 31, 2015. As a result, Perez and fire department staff have been working quickly to implement a plan to provide those services in-house. Commissioners voted to take on the project after being assured it would ultimately save money and provide a more dependable service than an outside agency. Care Ambulance is currently charging the city approximately $45,000 a month.

“I think we were all aware the start-up fee was going to be expensive, buying all this equipment and stuff, but as long as you are on the budget you told us about, we’re very comfortable with continuing,” Mayor Craig Cates told Perez. “We have confidence in you guys.”

 

 

 

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