# anybody work for Superior?



## jakobsmommy2004 (Oct 9, 2007)

I have an interview on fri. and just wondering if anybody works there or worked there. Im in the Michigan region. how is the company thanks


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## MMiz (Oct 9, 2007)

Superior started operations about a year before I left the Michigan area.  I don't believe they have any major contracts.

There are so many other services hiring EMT-Basics in the area (Star EMS, Community EMS, Alliance, Concord EMS), why not try one of them?


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## DisasterMedTech (Oct 10, 2007)

I have an Superior "franchise" in my hometown. My experience with them is scuttlebutt from other services I have worked with. First off, they do mostly non-emergency transfers, spiced up with the occasional mutual aide if the other privates get slammed. I have to say I havent been impressed with the quality of providers I have met. They have the only EMT-As (basically ambulance attendent or driver) I have ever seen. There appearance and professionalism could use alot of work. The cool thing is that they have alot of rigs with really unusual paints jobs.  If you dont mind doing non-911 for 9/10 calls, then it would be fine and it might be a good place to get started and get some ambulance/patient contact before moving on. Im not gonna slam that, I just think that if you are relatively new in EMS, which I dont know, you might find it a little boring.  If you want to PM me, I can give you some other info I have heard.


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## GoIrishEMT (Oct 10, 2007)

Superior is one of the largest private ambulance services in the Midwest. I'd be very surprised if they don't get major contracts pretty soon servicing different hospitals and different nursing homes.

I'm not sure how Superior operates in Michigan as I'm from Illinois. This past summer, I worked for a private ambulance service in suburban Chicago. Granted it wasn't Superior, but we had a lot of contact with Superior rigs and crews.

If you're an EMT-B, which I assume you are because you're browsing on this particular forum, I can near guarantee that you'll be doing transport calls over 90% of the time with a private ambulance service. All of the BLS rigs that the company I worked for _and_ Superior just runs transport calls all day. In case you're brand new to the job, a transport call is basically where a nursing home calls for an ambulance for "medical transportation" of a patient to see a doctor at an outpatient clinic or sometimes direct admit to the hospital. Either way, you provide very minimal patient care during these calls. Think of it as acting like a very glorified, ridiculously expensive taxi driver. The reason why you don't get to use a lot of your EMT-B training if you work with a private ambulance service is essentially because of liability issues. If a patient has "chest pain," you _could_ technically treat and transport. But the level of care a B can provide is nowhere near that of a medic. So, if the patient with "chest pain" craps out en route, a BLS rig is basically screwed whereas ALS could do a lot more.

In summation, if you get on Superior as an EMT-Basic, I can guarantee that you will be doing transport calls all day. Superior ambulances in suburban Chicago average about 8-10 calls during a 12-hour day. So, you're running your butts off for most of your work shift doing BLS transports. On a private service BLS rig, the only "emergency" calls that you would do are psych. emergencies, eye emergencies, and the occasional "foot pain" bull****. For psych, basically some resident at a nursing home freaked out and had a psych history. You're called to try to calm him down and bring him peacefully to the hospital. Eye emergencies go BLS b/c ALS can't do anymore for them than we can. But in terms of calls like "Altered Mental Status," "Chest Pain," "Difficulty Breathing," or "Syncope" will go to ALS 100% of the time unless your EMS system is very understaffed.

The only exception to being confined to doing BLS transport bull**** is to see if you can ride on an ALS rig. The service I worked for allowed employees to go 1:1 (meaning 1 Basic and 1 Paramedic on a rig). In this situation, you would have to drive on every single call and the medic would have to do patient care/run reports for every single call. But, the upshot is that you get to see a LOT more than you would be able to working on BLS. 

If you want to see more action, another option you could take is to see if you can get some ride time with a fire dept. Now granted you wouldn't be able to _do_ much because of liability issues. But, you'd be able to see all the trauma and medical calls that you wouldn't be able to see on BLS. Oh, by the way, unless Superior has a contract with the municipality near where you work, you won't see any trauma with a private service. 100% of trauma anything bigger than a mild-moderate epistaxis will go to 911. 

Let us know how Superior operates in Michigan. I'm curious to see if they work like they do in Illinois. Best of luck to you.


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## KEVD18 (Oct 11, 2007)

while not incredibly frequent, dont discount onsighted scenes. your driving down the road, witness a car crash. well hell your first on scene arent you. same goes for any sort of randomness that could take place in your prescence while purchasing your luch etc.

in ma, every nursing home is required to have a contractual agreement with an ambualnce company for transport of pt's. quite frequently, they call their contracted service even when its emergent. in my experience, more often than not, the company takes the call even when it should have gone to local rescue due to acuity or response time. 

but yes, most of your time spent on a private bls truck will be doing the renal roud up and burn/return's. but its the time you spend learning unteachable skills like bedside manner, hot to take signs bumping down the road, mechanics of the stretcher, transfering pt's from bed to stretcher etc. these are things you dont want to be learning on a 911 call. so put your time in doing low speed bls calls, perfect the less glamourous parts of your job and when you get on a 911 truck, you'll be a better emt for it.


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## jakobsmommy2004 (Oct 11, 2007)

KEVD18 said:


> while not incredibly frequent, dont discount onsighted scenes. your driving down the road, witness a car crash. well hell your first on scene arent you. same goes for any sort of randomness that could take place in your prescence while purchasing your luch etc.
> 
> in ma, every nursing home is required to have a contractual agreement with an ambualnce company for transport of pt's. quite frequently, they call their contracted service even when its emergent. in my experience, more often than not, the company takes the call even when it should have gone to local rescue due to acuity or response time.
> 
> but yes, most of your time spent on a private bls truck will be doing the renal roud up and burn/return's. but its the time you spend learning unteachable skills like bedside manner, hot to take signs bumping down the road, mechanics of the stretcher, transfering pt's from bed to stretcher etc. these are things you dont want to be learning on a 911 call. so put your time in doing low speed bls calls, perfect the less glamourous parts of your job and when you get on a 911 truck, you'll be a better emt for it.




yeah this will be my first experience working as an emt so it will help to learn all the mechanics of it all instead of just jumping in to emergency calls.


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## jakobsmommy2004 (Oct 11, 2007)

MMiz said:


> Superior started operations about a year before I left the Michigan area.  I don't believe they have any major contracts.
> 
> There are so many other services hiring EMT-Basics in the area (Star EMS, Community EMS, Alliance, Concord EMS), why not try one of them?



I tried Concord but they said they were not hiring, Community put an app in online, I talked to a Superior employee they pay more than all the others. not that im in it for the money obviously. they have a wide range of shifts to choose from and you get paid per run so im going to go with them first.


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## jakobsmommy2004 (Oct 11, 2007)

DisasterMedTech said:


> I have an Superior "franchise" in my hometown. My experience with them is scuttlebutt from other services I have worked with. First off, they do mostly non-emergency transfers, spiced up with the occasional mutual aide if the other privates get slammed. I have to say I havent been impressed with the quality of providers I have met. They have the only EMT-As (basically ambulance attendent or driver) I have ever seen. There appearance and professionalism could use alot of work. The cool thing is that they have alot of rigs with really unusual paints jobs.  If you dont mind doing non-911 for 9/10 calls, then it would be fine and it might be a good place to get started and get some ambulance/patient contact before moving on. Im not gonna slam that, I just think that if you are relatively new in EMS, which I dont know, you might find it a little boring.  If you want to PM me, I can give you some other info I have heard.





yeah it would be my first job as an emt-b


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## MMiz (Oct 12, 2007)

My main concern with Superior is that they believe that *anyone* can be a good EMT.  They're quite content hiring anyone, putting them through EMT school, and having them work the road.

I know they have the Henry Ford Hospital contract, so that's good, but I still think you could do better elsewhere.


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## GoIrishEMT (Oct 14, 2007)

jakobsmommy2004 said:


> I talked to a Superior employee they pay more than all the others. not that im in it for the money obviously. they have a wide range of shifts to choose from and you get paid per run so im going to go with them first.



This is a fairly accurate statement. For some reason, I forgot to mention some of these things in my previous blurb about Superior.
At Superior, you are required to sign up for three 12-13 hour shifts every week. You are not required to work any more beyond those three 12-13 hour shifts per week. Basically, everything more is overtime pay and you are free to sign up for those shifts provided that there is an opening that shift on the rig.
Superior employees have the potential to get paid more than other private ambulance services because they have a call bonus. They do not get paid per call, because they have an hourly wage which they get regardless of how many calls they get that shift. However, (in Illinois, at least) Superior employees get a $5 call BONUS for every call that they correctly complete the paper work for. Though the paper work is tedious to fill out completely, the call bonus can be significant, especially if you get 10 calls during that 12 hour shift.
Also, Superior has by far the most detailed and comprehensive pre-employment training program than any other private ambulance service that I've encountered (again, in Illinois). When you get hired by Superior, regardless of your prior experience, you are required to go through 2 weeks of didactic and practical training in a classroom setting. This includes obvious things such as your BLS skills, but also how to do safe, defensive driving on an ambulance and how to properly fill out paperwork. If you do not go through these 2 weeks of classroom training, you can't go on the rig. It's simple as that with Superior. The service that I worked for, on the other hand, stuck me on the rig the first day I started working, which I found somewhat humorous. 
Also, at Superior, if you fudge up on the job, you go to mandatory remedial class. Basically, you are required to sit in on a class teaching the skill set that you messed up on before you are allowed back on the rig. For instance, a buddy I know working for Superior fudged up cot operations and accidentally dropped a patient on a cot to the ground. He had to go through a remedial class on cot operations before he was allowed back on the rig. 

I'm assuming that, like most people working in the private service, you are going to use this experience as a stepping stone to something higher. Everyone I've known in the private service wants to end up in the fire department, in the ER working as an advanced tech, or into paramedic school where they eventually become a FF/advanced tech. If this is the case for you too, then Superior is a good place to start. Good luck.


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