It’s a Record Year Here for EMS Calls

Fayette County EMS has seen a record number of calls this year. EMS Director Josh Vandever said call volume increased from 3,500 at this time last year to one call shy of 3,900 this year.

“We’ve added at least an entire month of call volume in one year,” Vandever said at a Fayette County Commissioners Court meeting on Thursday, Dec. 9. “That’s a little scary as far as growth is concerned.”

However, Vandever said many of those calls result in no patient contacts or patients who decline treatment. Sometimes people call 911 to report a car accident, but when EMS arrives, the wreck turns out to be a minor fender bender with no injuries. Other times a concerned family member calls 911 and asks EMS to check on a relative, but the person doesn’t need medical treatment.

Those calls affect the EMS Department’s financial bottom line, because EMS can’t bill patients, their insurance companies, Medicare or Medicaid for calls that don’t result in some kind of treatment. However, those calls result in fuel costs, wear and tear on ambulances and staffing costs since the department must keep enough medics on duty to handle the call volume.

“I’m going to talk to dispatch and see if we can get a formalized call triage criteria drawn out,” he said.

Dispatchers trained in medical triage may be able to connect patients with services that don’t require ambulance transport.

“Also we’ve been working on some things with our crews to see if we are doing everything we need to do to make sure people are getting offered the chance to go to the hospital,” Vandever said.