I can never understand when people take advantage or even attack these wonderful qualified medics. I can NEVER understand when govts cut back funding…. it’s dreadful and costs lives and is disrespectful of emergancy services that save lives.

Your statement holds true, regardless of profession.

The subtle message here is to be engaged in lifelong learning. Then, in an economic downturn, your “tool belt” is better suited to handle the changes that are surely ahead of you.

Having well-educated and well-acting professionals speaks volumes to the profession development of paramedicine and EMS.

I actually agree with you. However, much like nurses that start as CNAs or LPNs, EMS also have a desire to move up. I think the premise for going from Paramedic to RN or from any other level to another is just part of human nature to constantly improve. After all, I don’t even know many nurses that are “just happy” to be a nurse and have no desire to move up.

Aside from patient care, which is the basis for what medical professionals do, people also want to hold a better standing in their career and earn more. Just because they earn more, certainly does not make them care less about their patients.

Thanks again for the comment, and welcome to the blog!

If you put money at the top of your life-goals, you will probably get it. But if you sacrifice doing what you love, what naturally speaks to you from your gut and your heart – maybe the “smart choice” will not turn out to be the wisest one.

When I get to the end of this road, I want to be able to say, “I wanted to help, and I did. Hands on.

The truth is, medics at every level should be paid appropriately for what they do, and the whole healthcare system in this country needs a lot of redesign to shift the money to where the work is done.

I wish I could answer your question. However, I am afraid the amount of investigating would far surpass my abilities. There are so many factors that contribute, including:

Geographic Location
Population Density
Other available resources, such as Taxi cabs that accept Medicaid, etc.

Also, since most counties have several services working the same county, reporting would entail a collaborated effort between them.

Here lies a problem:

There are two arguments with a service. If you understand the industry, you will also understand the huge number of private versus municipal funded agencies. Privates firms make their profits from mostly convalescent transports, in most cases. The runs described above would fall into the spectrum of convolescent transports.

If you are the owner of the private service that is profiting from convalescent runs, then you are likely not to accurately report the abuses described in the article. Quite frankly, they would be biting off the hand that feeds them.

I myself have worked for several agencies. They ranged from privately owned services in small cities, to county funded 911 services of rural areas, to a private service in a very large metropolis.

From my experiences, runs like these varied widely from one service to another. The county 911 service I worked for would complete an average of 6-20 runs per day, including emergency and convalescent runs. Of these, only a couple per week would fall into what I would call “abuse” of the system.

However, the large metro service I worked for completed upwards of 150 runs per day, and nearly 100% were convalescent. Of those, I 2 or 3 would fall into a very questionable category. ie.. Patient only using an ambulance because it was more convenient than providing their own transportation.

I do not mean to imply in any way that the problems lay on the providers themselves. In almost every instance, they simply do not have a choice. It is a very thin and gray line of negligence when refusing transport to a person for any reason.

The cost to fix the current system would sure be a large amount. However, I feel that although the initial costs might be cumbersome, the long term benefits would far outweigh them.

As infuriating as this sort of abuse may be, the potential costs of mitigation could exceed the cost of the actual abuse.

I think this also lend itself to one of the problems in EMS. In most counties, there is usually more than one ambulance service. Some are privately contracted, and others are municipal. I know of some counties that have as many as 6 or 7 different services, all vying to cover as much area as they can get. They are all left to work it out in a sort of confused territorial conflict.

I read a recent post at linkedin about regionalized EMS. The idea behind it is basically what emergency responders are suppose to do, but aren’t due to a bit of failed system.