# Paramedic pay in WA?



## TheBasicGuy (Apr 29, 2015)

Hey folks.

I was wondering if any of you knew what some of the agencies around here started medics at. Now I'm probably going to be a green fresh outta school medic so I probably wont stand out enough to get on as a fire medic. That means I'm gonna have to start somewhere.

With that said, does anybody know what places like AMR, Falck, R/M, or ALS start their medics out at?
I saw some guy say that ALS starts medics out at 10.50 an hour but i wasn't sure about that. As I make about 10-ish as a basic right now.


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## NomadicMedic (Apr 29, 2015)

Unless ALS had a dramatic pay increase, new medics start around 11 bucks an hour.

Most of the other privates also pay lousy.


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## TheBasicGuy (Apr 29, 2015)

DEmedic said:


> Unless ALS had a dramatic pay increase, new medics start around 11 bucks an hour.
> 
> Most of the other privates also pay lousy.



Alright. Did you work for them or something?

Any idea if any of the others pay different, less, more?


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## PotatoMedic (Apr 30, 2015)

Olympic medics make 14 an hour.  Least that is what I have been told.


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## waaaemt (May 3, 2015)

Rural/Metro starts around 15. pretty sure Olympic in Bremerton is 15, no 911 ALS  for them though.


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## NomadicMedic (May 3, 2015)

TheBasicGuy said:


> Alright. Did you work for them or something?
> 
> Any idea if any of the others pay different, less, more?



Yes. And PT at Oly in Bremerton paid 22/hour.


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## Fedekz (May 10, 2015)

I made 12/hr on a 24hr shift and 17/hr on an 8hr shift at AMR with 4 years experience as a paramedic and a bachelor's degree... 

Private companies don't pay **** here. Fire made 35/hr on a 24hr shift  when I was making 12...


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## RocketMedic (May 16, 2015)

It's an AMR thing. They offered 10.36 an hour for 24s in South Texas for a six-year pmed.


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## Drax (May 18, 2015)

Paramedic pay here is pretty rough.

On one end you've got nurses with two year degrees making in excess of 30 USD an hour and paramedics with four year degrees working the same type of shifts for less than half and in some cases 2/5ths of what a nurse makes.


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## TheBasicGuy (May 24, 2015)

DEmedic said:


> Yes. And PT at Oly in Bremerton paid 22/hour.


Ohh, ok. Well, I'm at a crossroads. I've found a legit online medic program. Hooo I bet a bunch of you are freezing right up as you read that.

Let me be clear: the only part of it that's online is the didactic part. Yes, the part where you sit in lecture, and that's it. This program is appropriately certified, and folks have already gotten their WA P after getting their NREMT-P from this program. It's 10 month didactic online deal with all the fun quizzes an exams, then a 10 day bootcamp for skills, then you go and do 250 hours of clinical, then another 250 ride time in an ALS rig. Rides and clinicals can be done a reasonable distance from me. Heck, my ALS ride time can be done in a district I volunteer for.

With that said, yes, the job prospects suck in Western WA and I can't move anywhere because of family so that really makes it different, I'd have to commute, and I don't mind that, just as long as it's not to Yakima to make like 1k less than I do now because of the cost of gas and low wage (I've crunched the numbers and it's like oh my god ew I could do that if I was single and could just move to the valley and grab a cheap apartment!).

Are there any places that would hire a part-time medic and sponsor me? Should I plan on getting a job in Pierce with R/M? Or another fancy place? I'll work for Oly, AMR, or R/M. It's not financially feasible to drive 5 hours to Yakima (Yeah that's about what it would take) or 233 miles just to make $10/hr. Then again, just having that NREMT-P would make me stand out as a fire candidate for a FF/EMT job. Which I'd be fine doing too. My main concern would be getting my WA paramedic after school, even if it's part-time somewhere pulling a few shifts a month. Which I know is not enough to keep me sharp but it would have to work and I don't care about sitting in an OR or ED on my off time to get skills taken care of. Of course my wife might think otherwise on that!

Maybe there's a department I haven't heard of that wants a volunteer medic to pull shifts every now and then? Who knows, I'd be a new medic at that point and I'd be a bit weary of being on a rig if I was the only P on board.

I'm not getting the medic to get a fire job, I volunteer for fire right now and I love it. I also love EMS, and I also want to do the best I can for my patients. I'd be happy doing either. I'm going to medic school so that I have more options. If I get a full-time medic job that I can do, sweet, awesome. If I get a fire/emt job just because I happened to have a medic cert and the other guy didn't, same deal.

I make more now as an EMT than I would in Yakima as a medic (lol), and I probably work maybe 10% as hard as they do.

So yeah, really I'm just wondering if medic school is even worth it. It seems like it is, but there's that lingering doubt that if I go to medic school, I'll get done, get my NREMT-P, and find that there isn't a place within reasonable distance that would hire a new medic. That would suck. Or I could drop 8k and hope it helps me stand out when getting a fire job, which I think is a bad mindset.

I've thought about nursing school too, but there's no way a full-time working, family raising, hooligan like myself could do it. They all are brick and mortar programs, and I'm not finding any online stuff that's in a similar format to the medic program I'm doing. You know, like do the classroom crap online, and drive about 1 hour or so to do labs, clinicals, etc. Nursing would be a smarter choice, I think, but it's not doable right now, and it probably wont be unless my wife starts making a ton of money, or I win the lottery. Maybe I should go buy a ticket...

Also, thank you guys for responding. And sorry for taking 20 days to respond myself. I thought this would send me an e-mail when I got a reply! hah


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## PotatoMedic (May 25, 2015)

Big student loan and do nursing school?  I think Buckley has volunteer medics and they are in pierce county.  So they are an option.


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## TheBasicGuy (May 25, 2015)

Big student loans are what myself and my wife already have. Well I guess mine aren't THAT big (less than 20k), hers are, and I would make enough as a nurse to pay for 2 years of student loans for school at a community college to get my RN (And later BSN because that's gonna be mandatory for a lot of RN stuff soon). But I'd likely take out another uhhh... at least 30k per year just for cost of living and then there's tuition! Woohoo...


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## waaaemt (May 25, 2015)

First off,  R/M in piece County is NOT fancy.  Neither is AMR, or really any other private place haha. Falck though, also not fancy, is hiring medics like crazy right now and a guy I talked to who works there says they start at 40,000 a year.  Probably like 16 an hour? They run maybe 2 calls in a 12-24 hour shift though.... So there's that.

I know a number of ppl who have done that online program, clinicals in Massachusetts or something right? Looked into it a little myself.  From what I've seen,  they are looked down on by every one else, called "mail order medics" , and half or more of em are not the most competent.... If the first part doesn't matter to you , cool. Cause you can control the competence factor. 

As far as ALS goes, I know they do a rotating 48 schedule so yeah you gotta drive 5 hours but only once a week,  maybe you could make up the 1000 you loose (was that per month?) with a part time non EMS job on an off day or 2? I know the experience there would keep you sharp as heck and that is pretty important. You could do that to you land a more lucrative gig..


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## NomadicMedic (May 26, 2015)

ALS was doing a FIXED 48, maybe that's changed, but it was very easy to work the two days there, get great experience, and work a couple or thee days at another job. Worth thinking about. As a new medic, the experience in Yak is nothing to blow off. Acosta was a great medical director and there's lots of opportunity to learn and make new medic mistakes in a forgiving environment.


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## TheBasicGuy (May 26, 2015)

waaaemt said:


> First off,  R/M in piece County is NOT fancy.  Neither is AMR, or really any other private place haha. Falck though, also not fancy, is hiring medics like crazy right now and a guy I talked to who works there says they start at 40,000 a year.  Probably like 16 an hour? They run maybe 2 calls in a 12-24 hour shift though.... So there's that.
> 
> I know a number of ppl who have done that online program, clinicals in Massachusetts or something right? Looked into it a little myself.  From what I've seen,  they are looked down on by every one else, called "mail order medics" , and half or more of em are not the most competent.... If the first part doesn't matter to you , cool. Cause you can control the competence factor.
> 
> As far as ALS goes, I know they do a rotating 48 schedule so yeah you gotta drive 5 hours but only once a week,  maybe you could make up the 1000 you loose (was that per month?) with a part time non EMS job on an off day or 2? I know the experience there would keep you sharp as heck and that is pretty important. You could do that to you land a more lucrative gig..



Falck doesn't sound like a bad idea. Obviously I hope they're still hiring like crazy in 21 months when the class is done.

And about the program in MA, I care much if people talk **** about the program. It's what people do, they talk crap about things, and that's just one more thing on the list. As far as the competency, yeah, you could skate by on this program if you wanted, you could get the 70% average score and still pass. Am I going to be ok with being a 70% kind of student? Nope, and my patients don't deserve that. This is one of those programs where you can come out with a good set of skills, and you are more in charge of how competent you are when you leave the program than in most. I can handle that, easy. I can also handle showing any naysayers that I didn't just get my mail order medic cert. This is also the only way I can get my medic, raise a family, and work full-time.

For ALS, the pay cut would suck, but in 21 months I have no idea what financial situation I'll be in. I can't really say that ALS wouldn't be worth it, when I consider the experience like DE medic says, the pay isn't that much different from my current job, even if I'm making more now as an EMT here than I would make as a medic in Yakima, it's not that much more, just enough to make someone look at it and go "Hmm, that's weird".

I feel better about the class now, and not as worried about getting a medic job. Even if I gotta drive 5 hours both ways once a week. If that's what I gotta do then so be it, right?


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## RocketMedic (May 27, 2015)

The BasicGuy, no one really cares where your paramedic school is, and they really don't care exactly what you know in terms of getting hired as long as you're competent. 

Are you tied to Washington State?


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## NomadicMedic (May 27, 2015)

RocketMedic said:


> The BasicGuy, no one really cares where your paramedic school is, and they really don't care exactly what you know in terms of getting hired as long as you're competent.
> 
> Are you tied to Washington State?



However, If you attend medic school and want to work in Washington, there is a fair amount of bias about where your education was obtained. TCC or Central hold a bit more cache than NCTI or the like. I knew a couple of mail order medics, and while they were okay, it took them quite a while to attain the skill level of a Washington state educated medic. Not through lack of education, more through lack of confidence and skill practice. Also, be careful who's toes you step on. The community of paramedics in Washington is pretty small and chances are the person your interviewing with will know a fair amount about you before you ever step foot in the office. 

If you're not tied to WA, there are a lot of other places where you can make a lot more money and have a more secure career as a medic, thus the primary reason I left...


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## TheBasicGuy (May 29, 2015)

Unfortunately, I am tied to WA. 

The bias about my education is something I will quite simply, have to just deal with.

NMETC is my program, and I know I'll be considered a mail order medic. But it's the only way I can do it with my current obligations, and I'm not really going to care what people think about that, because it's better than staying basic because "medic school is impossible". Instead, I found a damn way to do it, and I'm proud of that.

And I'll watch the toe stepping.


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## PotatoMedic (May 29, 2015)

Go for it.  Like others have said medic school will be what you make it.


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## waaaemt (Jun 6, 2015)

Yeah man go for it,  one guy I know who did that course is now a FF/medic in Eastern WA. So really it doesn't matter  too terribly much where you go to school.


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## Monkeywrench (May 17, 2016)

I know a few people that have gone through the program from Massachusetts and I've been thinking of doing it myself.  Basically the general consensus is that the program is what you make it.  Some of the medics from that program weren't people to admire and a few were great.  That being said there's an online nursing program in the Vancouver area that might be looking into.  Anyways I'm in the same boat as far as trying to find the best way to become a paramedic while working full time. I don't really care where I end up working but would like to keep my current job during school.


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## Hold My Beer (Jul 15, 2016)

TheBasicGuy said:


> Unfortunately, I am tied to WA.
> 
> The bias about my education is something I will quite simply, have to just deal with.
> 
> ...



As someone who has worked EMS in King County for 6 years and attended PM school at TCC all I can say is... F*** it.  If you have to do an online program because it meets your needs then there is nothing wrong with that.  However, there were many people in my class with several kids also working a full time job who were successful, so something to think about.  Another perk of attending an actual college program is the networking which has reaches to companies and departments out of state.  Like someone said before EMS in Washington is a small world which can benefit you if your not a **** head.  Once you get your medic cert start testing fire immediately.  There are no private ALS providers which also offer a living wage in Washington.


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