Why There’s a New Public EMS Agency in Rockport, Maine

On Jan. 8, 2025, the online edition of the Midcoast Villager newspaper (based in Camden, Maine) posted the following headline: “Rockport EMS Licensed and Ready to Roll: The Maine EMS Board has given Rockport the green light to start transporting patients.” The story said, “The Maine EMS Board voted unanimously Jan. 8 to grant the town of Rockport the primary 9-1-1 license to transport patients with the town’s new EMS department. Rockport Fire Chief Jason Peasley said as soon as this license is issued, the town will be able to begin transporting those in need with its own ambulance services, working 24/7. It has already hired staff for the department and has been responding to emergencies and providing care at the scene.”

The fact that the town of Rockport, Maine (population 3,646) has invested in equipment and people for its own publicly operated emergency medical service caught our attention at EMS World. So we contacted Chief Peasley to learn more. Here's what he had to tell us, in an exclusive EMS World one-on-one interview.

EMS World: What led to the Town of Rockport establishing its own EMS agency?

Chief Jason Peasley: About two years ago, things really started changing with the private EMS company that we had a contract with, in ways that were not beneficial to our citizens. So, we started doing the research: I brought on several long-term paramedics that have been doing this for 20-plus years to help me put this program together. We presented a plan to our select board a year-and-a-half ago. They agreed for us to put it together and start funding it. So last July, we received full funding to hire four full-time firefighter/EMTs and four paramedics, purchased an ambulance with all the equipment, and started going through the licensing process that was finalized on Jan. 8, 2025.

EMS World: What happened with the private ambulance service that spurred you to take this action?

Peasley: The four towns of Camden, Rockport, Lincolnville, and Hope for years had a contract with the Camden First Aid Association, which was a private company that covered EMS. Unfortunately, 10 years ago due to some financial issues, they ended up folding.

Being that the four towns had never had to worry about EMS, we were kind of thrown into finding a provider to cover the communities. It went out to bid. We received offers from three other private companies priced around $430,000 a year for each town, and then North East Mobile Health Services (NEMHS) came in at $36,000.

Obviously the select boards and town managers saw $36,000 for EMS and took the deal. Unfortunately, we quickly saw the pricing increase year after year. They initially supplemented our rates with the transfer business. But as NEMHS lost transfer contracts with Maine Med and Pen Bay Medical Center, our citizens paid the price, with the four town contract rates increasing. This resulted in substantial increases in contract costs from $36,000 up to where we are right now at about $900,000 a year. It was over a 3,000% increase in nine-and-a-half years.

Despite those increases, the communities did not see any increase in service levels. We also didn't see any decrease in response times: If anything, response times got larger. The service was not providing what some towns wanted for patient care, with more and more complaints being filed. There were times when responses were 30-plus minutes, and I'm talking in an area where the hospital's only five miles away.

We had to make a decision as a community: Are we content with this for our citizens, or do we want to do a municipality-based fire/EMS program that we have 100% control over?

We did more research and found that the Maine EMS Board had approved nine licenses for public EMS transport to other communities in the state, all for the same reason. All of them had been served by private companies and all nine agencies had the exact same complaints and concerns against them—and prices were significantly increasing. So, they all switched from private to municipality-based EMS.

Actually, that’s a trend in the state of Maine, that there's very few private companies left. We started the whole process, and our community was overwhelmingly in support of this. It passed the town vote by 90%.

We were and still are offering to work with the other three communities under the NEMHS contract. But they have decided to do their own thing and have their own leaders wanting to manage their own service. We continue to reach out with emails offering to sit and discuss the future of EMS in our area, as it is still very important that we all try to work together to accomplish the same goal: Providing excellent EMS service to our citizens. We are still very hopeful that we can all come to an agreement in the near future. 

We are extremely fortunate that Rockland Fire & EMS Chief Chris Whytock and his department are huge supporters of our plan for EMS within the county. Both towns are actively working as mutual aid partners, including ordering supplies, training and meetings for our future. We are in the process of working jointly on hiring a paramedic and a paramedic fly car to assist with coverage for both communities, which is the start of regionalization. These are small steps to get to a large goal.

EMS World: In terms of your costs, what sort of expenses are you looking at and how are you going to ensure that you don't run into the cash crunch that is hurting the industry so badly nationwide?

Peasley: Obviously the private companies are in it to make money. Fortunately, municipalities are supplementing their EMS agencies' revenues with taxes.

Revenue for us is a big thing. We're starting to transport now, so obviously we'll have revenue from transporting as well as mutual aid or paramedic intercepts with other communities. We'll be receiving revenue from those three different sources. It obviously isn't a 100% wash, so there is a fee to taxpayers to have a guaranteed ambulance in their community that's not doing transfers, and that's guaranteed to have a paramedic on it 24/7. There's a cost to that. But we will offset some of that with the transport business as well as assisting.

EMS World: Historically, many fire departments used to be privately run until communities finally realized they had to take over and fund these departments to ensure adequate coverage. Do you think that municipalities are starting to believe that they have to do the same with EMS?

Peasley: At least in Maine, it is becoming evidently clear that municipalities want control over their service for the citizens. As I mentioned, nine different departments in the last couple of years have switched from private to municipality. There are very few private EMS services left in the state of Maine. I don't know what the exact percentage is, but I would guarantee that less than 10%–15% are private now.