We had many visitors January 14, including Assistant City Administrator for the City of River Falls, Jason Stroud, (center in photo.) Jason provided an overview about the current state of the City's emergency medical services (EMS) department and discussed challenges and considerations about its long-term sustainability of the continued municipal operation.
He shared what the City has evaluated and is considering, in order to ensure that we have viable plans for the provision of EMS/ambulance services for the community.
“Our current emergency medical services in River Falls started in the 1970s, predominantly as a volunteer service, which provides advanced life support pre-hospital care and ambulance transportation for residents in River Falls, Prescott, and surrounding communities. It has evolved to a full time critical care advanced life support agency,” Jason said.
Call volumes have grown over the years as well as training requirements, with the associated costs in wages and benefits. Four percent of the service area population utilized River Falls EMS resources in 2018. We now have eight full time critical care paramedics.
"We need to ensure a viable long-term solution for quality EMS/ambulance services," said Jason. "This means it may be impractical for the city to continue to be the solution in terms of efficiency and value, and the payer system we are currently using is not favorable to municipal third-service EMS operations."
"When we project expenses versus the projected fee for service revenue, expenses are exceeding revenue by too much," said Jason. "And I think we've done what we can reasonably accomplish in cutting expenses, without affecting service delivery."
Transition to non-governmental health care partner
One solution to the problem is to transition to partner with a non-governmental health care provider for EMS services. The River Falls City Council and EMS Advisory Board issued a request for proposals to look for a solution that works for the entire River Falls EMS service area. Of the proposals received, the group agreed that the proposal received by Allina Health EMS (AHEMS) met all the submission requirements and will be the only proposal to be further considered.
Moving forward, the City will work with Allina to draft a contract that:
- Ensures current EMS staff will have an opportunity for employment
- Provides ambulance staffing similar to or better than the city is providing
- Is a fair value with market based rates that provides towns an opportunity to opt in for comparable or better rates and
- Ensures community interaction and connection.
The city council will need to formally approve the contract, and it may be presented in February.