Ambulance service contract expires

CHENEY – As of July 1, Cheney residents are technically without ambulance service.

That was the day Spokane County’s five-year contract — of which Cheney and other jurisdictions are a part of except the city of Spokane — with American Medical Response (AMR) expired. Fire Chief Tom Jenkins said that, at least for now, the national emergency transport provider was not bound by any previous response time requirements and essentially free to charge whatever it wanted, although he hoped they would do otherwise.

“My response to them is, we know you’ll make the right decision,” he added.

Jenkins said the problems stem from AMR’s request for a new contract that includes an almost 60 percent increase in transport fees, both base rate and per mileage charges. That would mean a trip from Cheney to a Spokane medical facility could cost over $1,600 for the 15-minute trip.

“At least for me for the city of Cheney, that’s just ridiculous,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins said AMR has cited increased employee costs as one of the reasons for the steep increase. Adding to the difficulties may be concessions Spokane made as part of their one-year renewal of its contract, concessions Jenkins said could impact the county’s negotiations.

According to a May 10 Spokesman-Review story, Spokane’s fire department urged the City Council to agree to the one-year deal that increased rates 20 percent rather than a five-year agreement that included just a 2 percent increase. Part of the reasoning behind the one-year deal was potential impacts AMR might see due to the COVID-19 pandemic, impacts that haven’t materialized but could be dealt with more “flexibility” provided by the shorter agreement.

The agreement also allows AMR to compensate for fewer available paramedics with less-skilled emergency medical technicians (EMT) and waive penalties charged to the company for longer response time if vehicles are out of service. It also now requires AMR to respond to non-urgent medical calls that the Spokane Fire Department used to handle.

Jenkins said AMR doesn’t respond to these types of calls in the rest of the county. Cheney and other jurisdictions are just as tapped with personnel resources to respond to these calls as the city of Spokane, perhaps more so Jenkins said, so the fact the larger jurisdiction can exact such concessions may impact the county contract renewals as well as increased costs.

Jenkins said there are discussions with other county fire chiefs on the possibility of also getting a one-year contract renewal, another five-year deal, arranging something different with the company or going out to bid to find a new ambulance service provider. The issue isn’t necessarily one of service, and Jenkins said AMR is meeting the local needs.

Both sides are talking and hoping to work out a new arrangement, but in the end, Jenkins said the existing proposals are something fire chiefs said they can’t in good conscience take to their elected officials for approval. The reason is because the eventual burden will not be the jurisdiction’s.

“All agree, at the end of the day it falls on the backs of the taxpayers, and we want to make sure we do due diligence to them,” Jenkins said.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].