Brennan K. Peel
Abilene Reporter-News
ABILENE, Texas — Rural Taylor County residents likely will have a new ambulance service provider in the next 60 days.
The county is negotiating with South Taylor Emergency Medical Services because it’s the only agency that’s willingly stepped up to handle increased service, said Taylor County Judge Downing Bolls.
The current primary provider, MetroCare, has announced plans to pull out of rural areas to improve response times within Abilene city limits.
STEMS is a not-for-profit volunteer ambulance service based in Tuscola that started 20 years ago. All volunteers are licensed emergency medical technicians or paramedics. The agency provides EMS service to Tuscola, Buffalo Gap, Lawn, Ovalo and most of south-central Taylor County, according to STEMS President Tim Brannon.
Bolls said the county earmarked $200,000 for service in the budget approved Tuesday for next fiscal year. There’s an additional $80,000 in a contingency fund to be used if the initial earmark doesn’t cover all costs.
STEMS told the county that the subsidy needed to cover costs of increased service would probably be closer to $280,000, not $200,000, which is why the Taylor County commissioners noted the contingency funds, Bolls said.
If STEMS can raise enough money through the fees it charges, the contingency funds won’t have to be tapped. As a private entity, STEMS charges those it transports, but fee collection is often hindered by regulations on what insurance programs such as Medicare will pay, Brannon said.
Brannon said the service operates like a volunteer fire department: The volunteers respond to text or radio 911 dispatches 24/7, travel from wherever they are to the ambulance station - there’s one in Tuscola and another in BuYalo Gap - and take the ambulance to the victim’s location.
Response times are slower than for services with full-time paid employees because no one sits around waiting for a call,
Brannon said. STEMS covers 236 of Taylor County’s 911 square miles and responded to about 300 calls last year.
But when STEMS takes over for MetroCare, Brannon said the agency plans to relocate the ambulance in Buffalo Gap to a new site near Abilene with access to the east, west and northern parts of Taylor County. The agency also will hire six full-time employees and some parttime help to improve response times.
The county is not legally required to provide service to residents in unincorporated areas, but county officials said they believe it’s in the public’s best interest to have such service available.
In March, a committee of Abilene residents selected by the Abilene City Council recommended that the Abilene Fire Department take over emergency medical duties from MetroCare. City fire engines currently respond to every emergency call.
In June, however, Abilene Fire Department Chief Ken Dozier said the city would work with MetroCare to improve communication and response times of ambulances.
“The city never said to run in the county, not to run in the county. All they said was they wanted to strengthen the relationship with MetroCare and improve response times,” said George Knupple, MetroCare’s chief operating officer, on Friday. “Since then nothing’s been decided. It’s still in the air. We don’t know (what) the final picture is.”
According to the committee’s report, the initial startup cost of an ambulance service would top $2 million, with the annual operating cost estimated at more than $2.5 million. James McCoy, the committee’s chairman, said the recommendation was based on the response time by MetroCare.
“The fire department is called first and MetroCare 30 seconds later,” he said in July. “Yet the response time might be five minutes later.”
Knupple declined to share data on MetroCare’s response times or number of rural calls.
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