Private Ambulance Service Taking Over Bartow EMS

CARTERSVILLE, GA — Bartow County is days away from its transition to team up with a private company to provide ambulance services to citizens in its jurisdiction. Effective Monday, Oct.1, MetroAtlanta Ambulance Service will take over this role currently provided by Bartow County Emergency Medical Services.

Metro has been the 9-1-1 Zone provider for Cobb County and the cities of Acworth, Kennesaw, Marietta and Smyrna since 2001, the county notes. Paulding County and the cities of Dallas and Hiram were added to the company's service district in 2013. Metro has also operated multiple ambulances in the county for several years under contract with Cartersville Medical Center for transports, the county previously said.

With this change set to take place on Monday, the city of Cartersville said this week its firefighters conducted the first of several in-service training session with MetroAtlanta. Those firefighters went over treatment protocols, equipment operations and "expectations of service" between the Cartersville Fire Department and MetroAtlanta.

"It is critical that all of the citizens and guests in the city of Cartersville receive the same, if not higher, quality of service and care that they have known," Cartersville Fire Chief Scott Carter said. "In order to provide that high level of service, we must have a solid team approach between us and Metro/ATL as the EMS provider. These training sessions help us to reach that goal."

The city noted future training sessions are in the works, its Facebook page indicates. Across the county, Bartow County Administrator said county employees transitioning to the new service have gone through orientation to become familiar with MetroAtlanta's policies and procedures.

Since announcing the news in the summer, Bartow County Administrator Peter Olson said about 32 full time Bartow EMS staffers have accepted jobs with MetroAtlanta. Everyone who applied for positions, he added, was offered jobs. However, about seven or eight personnel turned them down, went in other directions and some chose not to apply. Olson also said two employees moved over to the Bartow County Fire Department to launch an EMS training division.

For those who are wondering about logistics, MetroAtlanta will be buying new ambulances for the county, which will be of the Ford brand. Ten new ambulances and other support vehicles were purchased for supervisors.

"I have not been told a specific figure, but the last two new ambulances the county purchased were about $155,000 each, so I expect Metro has spent about $2 million equipping a brand new fleet to serve Bartow County," he added.

Olson said this was one of many misconceptions residents have expressed, as people were of the opinion that Metro would be using the ambulances that serve Cobb and Paulding County to run emergency calls in Bartow. Metro will station ambulances in the same stations where Bartow EMS vehicles were housed. Some ambulances will also be posted at various locations to shorten response times.

Metro uses data such as history of accidents on various days and times and weather conditions, and they use those factors to determine where they will place ambulances so they are close to where accidents have historically occurred.

"Thus, rather than have two or three ambulances sitting at Station 1 waiting for a call, they may leave one there, and post two into gas stations or parking lots closer to Main Street or I-75, where accidents occur," Olson told Patch.

Bartow County said its in-house ambulance service operated at a loss of more than $2 million in fiscal year 2017, and was already in the red at $950,000 for the first five months of fiscal year 2018, the county said Monday.

Over the last 10 years, the service has lost $13.5 million due to expenses drastically exceeding billing revenue. That figure does not capture all costs born by the county for EMS services, such as SPLOST expenditures on ambulances and billing service costs. Metro can provide "excellent service, but they have the economies of scale to operate in a profitable fashion," the county adds.

Bartow County has also entered into a detailed contract governing performance standards, and Metro said it's willing to guarantee a response time — from the time the call is received by 9-1-1 dispatch to the time the ambulance arrives at the scene — that is shorter than what the existing service provides.

Metro will operate six, 24-hour trucks, just as EMS does now, from the same five county stations. Metro will also be operating at least three 12-hour trucks, which is more than Bartow EMS provides now. Metro also has typically about 32 to 36 ambulances in Cobb County and 10 to 12 in Paulding, which provide additional regional resources. Metro is headquartered in Cobb County where they have extensive administrative, training and maintenance facilities. The five-year contract will have an option to terminate annually if the service provided is not satisfactory to county standards.

Olson agrees that the change has upset some employees as well as residents, as they thought most of the employees would have been fired as a result of the transition. The county insisted that Metro offer every employee a job and that everyone who applied for work would be offered employment.

"Some chose to take other opportunities such as working in other fields, some went to family businesses, some simply took their retirement," he said. "So the persons responding to the emergencies will largely be the same persons who have been, just with a different color shirt. All county employees had received a 3-percent raise in July and Metro put an additional 3-percent minimum on top of that. Part-time pay actually went up $3 to $5 per hour, I am told."

If the change had not occurred, Olson said Bartow EMS was projected to have lost at least $25 million over the next 10 years. Bartow County has had multiple ambulance companies over the years reach out and offer to take over 911 service with no subsidy.

"Small, rural counties do not have the volume to receive that offer," he said. "They have to subsidize private companies. With our population and our hospital, the volume of calls here was enough that all providers who contacted us said they could do it with no subsidy."

MetroAtlanta, with more than 600 employees, has received glowing reviews from county leadership in Cobb and Paulding, Olson said. He notes Cobb has had the resources to switch providers over the years, but has maintained its contract with MetroAtlanta for 18 years.

Bartow County will also use some of the money it will save with the transition to upgrade the Fire Department's emergency medical response capabilities. Firefighters currently have basic First Aid training, and there are some firefighters who are certified as paramedics or EMTs.

Staffing at Stations 8 and 4 will be arranged so they can both operate as Basic Life Support stations, meaning the engines at those facilities will always have firefighters who are at least trained to EMT standards "so that they can basically act as an ambulance, other than transporting the patient."

With this new initiative, Bartow County plans to keep expanding BLS status across all fire stations. To that end, the two senior paramedic officers who transferred from EMS to the Fire Department to create an Emergency Medical Service training division will manage the rest of the Fire Department up to at least Basic EMT status.

"We certainly provided excellent medical care with our county EMS service, and we will continue to have excellent care from Metro, at no cost to the county," he added. "Every county around us except Cherokee uses a private service; it is the logical choice for most communities. We tried for several years to find a way not to have to make the switch, but the logic became too compelling."

Bartow County has created uploaded two documents designed to provide residents with more information related to the switch. You can click here and here for details on the transition.

Images via city of Cartersville