Have you joined a Centre County ambulance association yet? Here’s why you should
Most of the ambulance service organizations in Centre County currently have a membership campaign running, something that is beneficial to both the ambulance association and the person receiving the service.
Scott Rawson is the executive director at Centre Lifelink EMS, but spoke before the Centre County board of Commissioners Tuesday as a member of the Centre County Ambulance Association to promote membership campaigns.
“It’s the time of year when eight of the 10 ambulance services in the Centre County have a membership campaign, and that is something that’s very important financially to the organizations,” Rawson said.
Bellefonte EMS, Centre LifeLink EMS, Moshannon Valley EMS, Mountaintop Ambulance in Sandy Ridge, Penns Valley EMS, Pleasant Gap Fire Company Ambulance, Port Matilda EMS, and Snow Shoe EMS are currently holding membership campaigns, he said.
An ambulance transport can be expensive, so the primary benefit to the person purchasing a membership to their community ambulance service is unlimited 911 emergency transports with no out-of-pocket (or very minimal) expense.
Basic Life Support could cost around $900 and Advanced Life Support (a call in which a paramedic is needed) can be around $1,600, he said.
Without a membership, the out-of-pocket expense for one trip is much higher than the membership cost. According to Centre LifeLink’s website, a 2023 family membership is $95/year (covers everyone residing in the household) and an individual membership is $75/year.
Memberships vary between different ambulance organizations, Rawson said, but for Centre LifeLink EMS, if someone has a membership, they will bill the person’s insurance. Even if insurances are covering the cost, they’re not paying the full amount.
“What the insurance pays is accepted as payment in full, so there’s no out of pocket expense,” he said. “And it’s unlimited. So if you’re transported 10 or 12 times in the year, you will pay nothing out of pocket for the ambulance fee.”
The memberships also provide community support and financial means for the ambulance organization. Many are financially struggling and the reimbursement from some insurances do not cover what it costs to provide the service, Rawson said.
Last year, Centre LifeLink sent out 36,278 membership brochures and 4,800 were returned.
“So we’re at 13% and I was thinking gosh, if we could double that, get 25%, that would allow us to replace an ambulance every year,” he said.
Commissioner Mark Higgins serves on the Centre County Public Safety Training Center advisory board and talked about the cost of just one ambulance.
“It’s incredibly expensive to run an ambulance service … and because they’re out relatively often they don’t last forever,” Higgins said.
Each new ambulance costs $200,000, and that doesn’t include anything inside of it. Rawson said for the paramedic calls, a cardiac monitor costs $35,000, power load stretcher costs $20,000, and the power load system that raises the stretcher into the ambulance costs $25,000.
Higgins responded: “And I’m sure everyone wants a state of the art ambulance to arrive to assist them in an emergency … so that you don’t have a visit from the county coroner’s office instead. And the only way this is going to happen is if (a) substantial fraction of people purchase memberships from their local ambulance service.”
The only revenue sources for ambulance services are the fee for service and memberships and donations.
“Most ambulance services do not receive tax dollars. There are some in the community that their municipalities help them out. But it still isn’t covering the cost to provide the service – and the personnel cost is as high as the equipment cost,” Rawson said.
Commissioner Steve Dershem said while an appreciation needs to be developed for the importance of the services, ultimately money, volunteers and professionals are needed.
Rawson noted that post-pandemic, call volumes have been higher than ever before, but organizations have fewer and fewer volunteers.
“A lot of these ambulance services … are struggling to get folks to even help. And this is one more avenue that presents the opportunity for those people to get the training, to be paid and to provide a service to the community that we all frankly depend on because it would be a scary day if they called the 911 system and nobody showed up,” Dershem said.
Year to date, 13% of Centre LifeLink’s total call volume is outside of its primary service area.
“Other neighboring services are struggling … either they don’t have the staffing or they’re busy with a call already. So we’re responding out of our community and it makes it difficult for us to cover 100%. We’re still covering, each month, between 98 and 99% of our dispatched calls. But it’s difficult when we’re being pulled in a lot of different directions,” Rawson said.
