News

EMS Transition Smooth From Fla. City to County

Matthew Beaton

10/28/2013

Oct. 27--PANAMA CITY -- Emergency ambulance service has passed cleanly into the county's hands, officials say, but the waiting game to see if it will turn a profit as consultants predicted has just begun.

Bay County began running emergency medical services (EMS) Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, and by all accounts the transition has been seamless.

"It's gone very smoothly. We haven't had any real bumps in the road that come to mind. ... Operationally nothing's changed," said Mark Bowen, the county's Emergency Services director.

The county absorbed the entire EMS staff, 88 positions, previously employed by Bay Medical Center Sacred Heart Health System, which formerly operated the service. Though only three weeks under the new management, county officials say no one has filed a formal complaint and the area's two hospitals are satisfied with the service.

But profitability remains up in the air. Prior to the County Commission's vote for takeover, county-hired consultants said EMS would make $600,000 to $1.2 million annually, and that's what officials are hoping for and banking on moving forward.

Already the county has sunk more than a half-million dollars into the venture derived from a $3 million line of credit. The credit is meant to carry the service during the first three months while the county waits for insurance and other payments to roll in --there's a lag time between the ambulance rides and the insurance payouts.

The county expects to use the $3 million by December's end. The money comes at a 1.29 percent interest rate.

The county is still waiting for a Medicare provider number, which should arrive in about two weeks, Bowen said. Then it must wait for the number to be processed, but eventually the money will start flowing in -- all the way back to the Oct. 1 start date.

On the insurance side, county spokeswoman Valerie Sale and the Clerk of Court's office, which oversees the county's financials, said no numbers were available yet as to how much, if any, revenue has been received.

Meanwhile, EMS continues to provide rides and bill patients. In just the first six days, it racked up $313,003 in billings, and call volume is unchanged.

"Everything from my perspective is within budget and within, you know, the projections that we got," Bowen said.

Previously profitable

Bay Med, which went private in 2012, previously ran EMS at a profit. The County Commission became interested in absorbing EMS following the hospital's change in status from not-for-profit to profit. It cited fairness as the primary motivation, not wanting one of two local hospitals benefitting from more emergency room patients because it ran EMS.

Bay Med's CEO Barry Keel spoke complimentary of the EMS transition and wished the county well with its undertaking, even though it was a lost revenue stream for his hospital. He said he was confident the county could handle the job.

"In my opinion the service has gone excellent," he said. "There have been no visible changes whatsoever to the quality of service ... and we're glad that everything has gone as smoothly as it has."

Keel said he wasn't "significantly" concerned Bay Med would see a decline in emergency room patients. He said paramedics take patients to the hospitals they request.

"In our experience the patient preference more commonly is Bay Medical for a number of reasons, and we don't anticipate that patient preference to change," he said.

Gulf Coast Medical Center CEO Carlton Ulmer believes greater EMS transparency will come now that the county runs the service, and he is pleased by that. He said he wants his hospital to be a collaborator on EMS in the future, but was guarded when judging the county's progress so far.

"It's very early on in the transition," he said, adding, "We'll see where it goes, but I think it's heading in the right direction."

Ulmer said he hadn't noticed much of a difference in the service since the transfer took place.

"I think ... time will tell in regards to the service and the financial aspects of the service," he said, "but I think they're absolutely heading in the right direction right now."