Ky. Task Force Supports Contract Extension with Ambulance Company

Jan. 08--A task force charged with determining the best way to provide ambulance service in Owensboro and Daviess County will recommend that a revised contract for 3 1/2 years be signed with current provider Yellow Ambulance Co., Owensboro Fire Chief Steve Mitchell said Wednesday.

Mitchell is scheduled to brief the Owensboro City Commission on the recommendation during Tuesday's noon work session of the commission at City Hall.

Mitchell said the task force spent months on the issue.

"This is phase 1 of two phases," Mitchell said. "Phase 1 was asking the question of how can we improve the quality of service under the current arrangement. We sharpened our pencils and went into the (current) agreement. We've got what we feel is a good answer to the question of do we think we can make things better with a new agreement, and the answer is yes."

The next step in the process is figuring out what will be done beginning on July 1, 2018, when the recommended new contract ends. But Mitchell said he wasn't ready to talk about that yet. He also did not release the specific terms of the modified contract with Yellow Ambulance.

"They (city leaders) want us to wait until Tuesday," Mitchell said.

"We've still got things we're working on with Yellow to finish it."

Mitchell said Yellow Ambulance is agreeable to the new contract. Daviess Fiscal Court will be briefed on the contract recommendation during its Jan. 22 meeting. If the contract passes city and county muster, it will be signed in February, he said.

"It's been a lot of work going into this," Mitchell said. "We're happy where we are at."

While Yellow Ambulance provides ambulance service throughout the city and county, the Owensboro Fire Department also responds to accidents and medical emergencies with firefighters trained as emergency medical technicians on a "first responder" basis, Mitchell said.

Eight months ago, Mitchell presented the findings of an ambulancestudy that examined the possibility of the city operating its ownambulance service. At that May meeting, Mitchell presented commissioners with eight "models" on ways to provide futureambulance service, ranging from keeping much of the current system in place to making major changes.

The study was prompted, at least in part, by concerns about what kinds of 911 calls take priority under private versus public control.

Ambulance service in Owensboro and Daviess County is provided by Louisville-based Yellow Ambulance, a for-profit company that also has ambulance service in Louisville, Bullitt and Christian counties, in parts of Indiana and in St. Louis. Yellow Ambulance's contract with Owensboro and Daviess County is renewed annually.

Two models described by Mitchell were not a lot different from the current arrangement. Another one featured a city ambulance service based at fire stations that would require $1.3 million in start-up costs and an annual subsidy of up to $193,000 for city-only 911 calls.

Other models featured city ambulance services for all types of calls in the city only, and all types of calls in the entire county, with both models having the ability to actually generate surplus funds, but also requiring considerable start-up costs. Yet another model sharedambulance service with Daviess County emergency providers, and one would have ambulance service provided by a hospital.

In May, a Yellow Ambulance official in Daviess County said the company wanted to continue providing ambulance service to Owensboro and Daviess County without changes, while noting that the company would still have a license to operate in the city and county whatever decision the city makes.

Steve Vied, 270-691-7297, svied@messenger-inquirer.com

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