News from Boundary Ambulance

Boundary Ambulance recently requested additional funding from the county commissioners.

We would like you the community to understand why the request was made to the commissioners. We are providing the following information so that you can discuss these issues with your commissioner and/or the Boundary Ambulance board. The request for additional funding was due to several circumstances that need to be explained.

First — Boundary Ambulance receives roughly $360,000 per year to provide EMS service in Boundary County. This may seem like a huge amount of money, but this does not cover the annual cost for one full-time paramedic level ambulance. To provide a full time paramedic ambulance cost our company around $408,000 annually. This does not include buying an ambulance or providing capital supplies like stretchers, cardiac monitors etc. When you consider a new ambulance cost $170,000, this could be very pricey, which is why we buy used trucks. Our used ambulances run around $70,000. Also consider a cardiac monitor cost $30,000, but then again when our paramedics are using it on someone whose life is hanging in the balance, what is that worth. All said to outfit a used ambulance including capital, we are looking at an additional $113,000. This brings the grand total of one full time ambulance in at $520,000.

Second — Boundary Ambulance depends on revenue that we generate from calls to cover 60 percent of our budget. When we have slow months like we did in March and April, we suddenly are operating at a deficit. These situations are obviously hard to predict, as calls for service are not easily forecast from year to year. When you consider that workman’s comp insurance cost us around $60,000 last year from claims in years past, then you can see where things add up quickly. We still have to make payroll, cover supplies, rent etc even if we have no revenue coming in. We can’t lay off employees, because just as soon as we downsize staff, the calls will inevitably increase.

Third — Payroll has increased as we now pay our EMT’s instead of using them as volunteers. With the call volume around 1,200 calls per year, we were having issues staffing with volunteers. Being able to pay means that the staff members are required to be at the station instead of coming from home to get the ambulance. Since this has been put into effect, we have had an average time enroute to a call known as “chute time” reduce dramatically. This is extremely important when you are dealing with Time-Sensitive- Emergencies or TSE (strokes, trauma and active heart attacks). A quick example would be in 2012, when Boundary Ambulance was all volunteer, the average “chute time” was 7:36 meaning over seven minutes to get an ambulance out the door on the way to a call. 90% of the time that year it was over sixteen minutes to get an ambulance on the way to a call. This was accepted because the crews were all volunteers. Between February and June 1 of this year our crews were at a phenomenal 1:52, which is what you get with paid and part time paramedics and EMTs staying at the station.

Fourth — Employee retention is a huge factor in rural areas like ours. Dealing with a nation-wide shortage of paramedics, most medics go to places that pay well and offer competitive benefits. We have been unable to provide our paramedics any benefits in the past other than a paycheck. This year we began providing health benefits. This was done to try and make it more stable for them to remain and not go to other areas to seek out more stable careers. This was budgeted in but after slow revenue months this can put a large burden on our cash flow.

Boundary Ambulance wants the community we serve to understand just how much the service we provide costs. Because we do offer the highest level of prehospital care to our community, then we have to handle the price tag associated with it. We try and have other revenue streams as well to offset some of our costs. During the summer time we deploy fire line medics on a contract basis to have an alternative revenue stream. This past summer this worked out well and we will continue to do this to keep the service up and running in our community.

Bottom line if revenue dries up, we have to begin decreasing services and we do not want that to happen. We want to continue offering a great service to our community that is sustained for years to come. We appreciate the support our community gives and look forward to taking care of them for many years to come!