Ambulance services at ‘breaking point’ as coronavirus surges, advocacy group warns
Ambulance services in the U.S. have been pushed to a “breaking point” as the country stares down another surge in coronavirus cases, advocates warn.
Without additional funding, they fear the industry is on the brink of collapse.
“The 911 emergency medical system throughout the United States is at a breaking point,” Aarron Reinert, president of the American Ambulance Association, said in letter to federal authorities. “Without additional relief, it seems likely to break, even as we enter the third surge of the virus in the Mid-West and West.”
The American Ambulance Association is a trade organization representing the emergency medical services industry. In a letter dated Nov. 25 addressed to the Department of Health and Human Services and obtained by McClatchy News, it attributed the current strain on the system to an uptick in calls for ambulances coupled with a lack of federal funding and Medicare reimbursements during the pandemic.
The letter seeks $43,500 per ambulance, or $2.62 billion for ground ambulance service providers, from the Provider Relief Fund — a $175 billion coffer established for hospitals and health care providers under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Ground ambulance providers were allocated $350 million under the Provider Relief Fund, the American Ambulance Association said. Nursing homes and rural hospitals, by comparison, received $7.4 billion and $11 billion, respectively, the letter states.
That money has all but run out for ambulance service providers, NBC News reported.
“All the funding that the federal government gave us, whether it was PPP [Paycheck Protection Program] funding or money from HHS, all of that is long gone,” Jim Finger told NBC. “But we still have all these issues, and we’re trying to find ways to financially survive and continue to do our jobs.”
Finger is the chief administrative officer of the Regional Ambulance Service in Vermont and chairs the American Ambulance Association rural provider task force.
According to the American Ambulance Association, private ambulance services account for 28% of all emergency services nationwide, an in rural areas with no fire departments, EMS-only services account for about 65% of all responders. Most of those private services are “small, local businesses,” the letter states.
But those companies reportedly received almost no funding from grants associated with Federal Emergency Management Agency or Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response.
Funding for personal protective equipment from state and local coffers has also been virtually nonexistent, according to the letter.
“As you can see from these data points, there has been an increased burden on ground ambulance suppliers that few other providers have experienced,” the letter states. “Without ground ambulance services, communities across the country would not be able to fight the pandemic. Yet, the federal government has not yet recognized the unique contribution nor provided adequate funding to allow these essential businesses to address the financial instability caused by the pandemic.”
In addition to the lack of federal funding, the American Ambulance Association said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won’t reimburse ambulance providers if they respond to a 911 call and the patient isn’t transported to the hospital.
But treating patients at the scene is the new normal during the pandemic, according to NBC.
In March, MedStar ambulance service in Texas announced patients with low medical complaints wouldn’t be taken to the hospital if they showed signs of COVID-19, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Other ambulance providers and first responders adopted similar policies to avoid overwhelming hospitals and better contain the virus.
The American Ambulance Association addressed the decrease in transports in its letter, pointing to “hot spots” that haven’t reflected the downward trend in ambulance calls.
In New Rochelle, New York, for example, 911 calls in which patients weren’t transported jumped from 500 to 6,049 during the pandemic compared to the same time frame in 2019, according to the letter.
“Their mandatory treatment in place without transport reduced their transport volume by 25 percent,” the letter states.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Ambulance services at ‘breaking point’ as coronavirus surges, advocacy group warns."
