Unexpected Lifestat Ambulance Closing Shifts Burden to Remaining EMS Agencies

Pennsylvania's Lifestat Ambulance unexpectedly closed its doors on Dec. 7, 2024, after 36 years of service to Saltsburg and Avonmore boroughs, plus Conemaugh, Young, Loyalhanna and Bell townships.

“Due to a critical decline in insurance reimbursement and financial support we have made the decision we can no longer continue to provide emergency services to the Saltsburg area,” Lifestat explained on its Facebook page. “We have asked political agencies for funding and have been denied. The local services have confirmed they will honor all our memberships until the renewal on February 1st. We appreciate all the people who have supported us in the past. We apologize for the inconvenience and short notice to all.”

According to a Lifestat news release quoted by the Indiana Gazette, “Over the past two years, insurance companies have significantly increased patients’ out-of-pocket deductibles and co-pays, raising them by $200-$300 per trip. Unfortunately, fewer than 5% of patients have been willing or able to pay these costs.” Serving patients classified as “Medicaid qualified” resulted in Lifestat often receiving “less than $100 per trip for emergency advanced life support that often costs more than $400 per trip to provide.”

Darrick Gerano is administrative director at Murrysville Medic One. It is one of four regional EMS agencies that has been picking up the slack in Lifestat’s absence.

According to Gerano, Livestat's closing came out of the blue for his agency. “We literally had 20 minutes’ notice,” he said. “The owner of Lifestat Ambulance asked to meet with me, which we did, and we had about an hour and a half conversation. The last half hour of it was him telling me that he was closing his doors at midnight, which was a half hour after our meeting ended.”

Prior to Lifestat closing down, Murrysville Medic One covered about 93 square miles of Westmoreland County, which is located in southwestern Pennsylvania. “We did an average of about 18,000 calls a year. That's both emergency and nonemergency,” Gerano said. After Lifestat left the scene, “our weekly call volume went up by 30 calls.”

Murrysville Medic One has been able to shoulder its share of Lifestats calls relatively easily. “With the partnership that we developed with the other three services in our area, I think it's been pretty smooth,” Gerano said. “People should be seeing maybe just slight delays in some of those service areas that are really rural, but overall it has been very smooth, surprisingly.”

Nevertheless, Gerano is concerned about the factors that drove Lifestat out of business.

“This is a direct result of the insurance reimbursement impact that's happening in our industry right now,” he said. “We lost Lifestat in December 2024. We lost another EMS agency as of Jan. 1 this year, and we know that there's one or two others that are just hanging on out there. Every time something like this happens, it makes the other services a little bit weaker. It's a little more of an area that we have to try to cover on a strict budget. Something needs to happen somewhere along the line, or these EMS agency closures are going to be a domino effect that's going to keep happening.”

What needs to be done? “I think a series of things need to happen,” Gerano said. “One, the insurance companies need to increase the reimbursement rates for us because right now—basically every time we answer a call—we lose money and we're losing it by probably a little over $100 per call. So, the insurance companies need to buckle up. Local municipalities also need to start supporting their EMS agencies in a monetary way. And then there’s the actual citizens: We mail out subscriptions every year, and our average return is between 27% and 30%, which is horrible, but that's one of the better returns in our area. Most of them are between 11% and 15%.”

Unless these factors are addressed, Gerano expects the dangerous trend of EMS agencies closing due to lack of funds to continue. “It's scary and it's a losing battle for us,” he said. “And like I said, every time this happens, it makes us [all] a little bit weaker.”