Private provider ambulance

[PPB8883]

hello all,

Does anyone here work for a private ambulance company such as AMR, If so how large is the company? How many calls a day/
year and what part of the county are you in?

thanx in advance

:) PPB

[KYEMT325]

I have friends who work for Rural-Metro EMS here in Lexington, although they are severely restricted as to what they can and can't respond to here. The city fire department handles all emergency calls, and Rural Metro isn't allowed to take any emergency calls unless they originate from a nursing home facility, in which they have contracts with because the city got tired of having to take 100 "bruised hip" calls a day from the nursing homes in the county. From what my friends tell me, they constantly take runs, are paid poorly (medics making 8.00/hr?!?), and they really don't like it but are using it to get EMS experience. I worked for a private ambulance service one time, but it wasn't a national service like AMR or Rural-Metro, it was just locally owned and the owner had ambulance services in about 5 or 6 counties. We were constantly on the road, hardly had time to sleep, worked crazy hours (48 hour shifts), and the company ended up eventually getting busted by state labor board for not complying with wage-and-hour laws. The owner subsequently sold out to another company and it is operating under worse conditions now than it ever did.

If you want an EMS job, stick to the ones owned by a governmental entity, I mean yeah, you're gonna put up with typical bureaucratic stuff there, but at least they're more likely not to break the law during your employment.

[JimSpoor]

In the past I have worked for 3 different private ambulance companies. None were national companies. I had three very different experiences. One had a BLS contract for a small city (pop.65-70k). One had the ALS contract for a rural county plus all non-emergency and inter-facility runs, (most over 1.5 hours). One did nothing but non-emergency interfacility runs in NYC. I learned something at all three.

In general KYEMT is correct; private EMS pays the least and offers the least benefits, training, etc. The key word is in GENERAL. There are many different EMS models: municipal, county run, private, hospital based, fire based, 3rd service, etc. I don't feel it is fair to judge an agency based on which model it fits. Judge it based on performance, employee morale, and other qualitative factors.

Stay Safe

BTW: I left EMS as a career to pursue federal LE. Now EMS is my avocation.

[Sandles2Sidearm]

Certified lifting technicians

It is nice to see that people who take grunts to and fro are posting.

For the person's original post...
FIRE Contracted ambulance companies are going to get you the most experience above CLTing

You will learn wonderful monickers like WWTMB (way way to many birthdays) or GOOMER (get out of my ER) nurses love that one...

Bottom line, go for it... there is no experience like it. See the movie Brining Out the Dead with Nichola Cage and you will only get a little bit of the culture...- the alcohol...

[CPD-Dispatcher]

I use to work for a prvt ambulance service
We had contracts for two citys one about 60,000 and the other about 75,000 all ALS & BLS emergency and non emergency EMS. Also contacts for a few townships & state prisons. We had Durning the day 9 ALS squads and after 8pm 7 ALS sqauds. Worked 24hr shifts and got paid CRAP!!!!!

[Sandles2Sidearm]

Worked with Doctor's Ambulance wich has an extensive fire contract, BLS emergency response. Paramedics in this county are all public and work solely with the Fire Departments. I worked 24's and was up all night long, so the money was bad, but the work was hard and long.

You learn a lot. You learn that patient care is a distant second when money and interfacility transports are a priority.





There is nothing like running a call on your 3rd 24 in a row, and not remembering a damn thing about it. " Did we run an acute MI this morning?"

My response, "We ran a call this morning?"