Calif. Fire District May Contest for Ambulance Service Contract
Sept. 09--MARTINEZ -- The Contra Costa County Fire District could vie to replace American Medical Response as the county's emergency medical services provider.
The county Board of Supervisors, sitting as the Contra Costa County Fire District board, commissioned a study in April to examine the feasibility of ConFire bidding to become the county's emergency medical services provider once the current contract with American Medical Response expires at the end of 2015.
The study, by the Ludwig Group LLC of Hillsboro, Mo., completed late last month, concludes that "it is cost-efficient for (ConFire) to operate their own EMS transport system."
The county does not currently subsidize the service.
The study projects a revenue surplus of almost $2.3 million over the estimated $29.4 million expenditures the first year, with potential net revenue of $9.8 million the second year.
The study is available online at https://bit.ly/1nGZSyW.
An AMR official expressed skepticism at the study's financial predictions and warned that the taxpayer would end up chipping in if the fire district becomes the service provider.
"According to our research, we do not believe that it would be financially possible for ConFire to take over ambulance services without the assistance of taxpayer subsidies, significant increases in patient charges and/or heavy financial risk to the County," AMR's general manager for Contra Costa, Erik Rohde, said in an email Monday.
The Board of Supervisors is expected to decide Tuesday whether to go ahead with submitting a competitive bid. The board will meet at 1:30 p.m. in the board chamber, 651 Pine St., Martinez.
Contact Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760. Follow him at Twitter.com/tomlochner.
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