How hard is it to get a job on an ambulance as an EMT B?

You dont get it and it's getting painful.

This is the job market, not the dollar menu at McDonald's. You don't get to create your own little world to live in. A company might have options, but A) we can't know that and B) you get to choose from what's offered to you, not the vast world of possibilities.

I did the rough math for you on your projected income. I can't tell you if it's enough because I don't live your life. Only you(or a qualified financial planner with all of your particulars) can say for certain. The short answer is you're going to struggle. How much we can't say, but neither of you is going to make much money, so it won't be easy.
 
John Trammell Jr said:
I wanna do ALS then. Can i choose?
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Nope...at least not at most companies. And if your end goal is medic and 911 you'd probably want the BLS truck to get the patient contact and work on assessment skills.
 
hometownmedic5 is correct. You are asking way too many variables. Its going to depend on the company. Pay as an EMT-B sucks. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to do this at all for the low pay. My company starts EMT-B's at $12/HR and is a flat rate across the board. Another area company starts $15/HR but changes depending if you do 24's or if you do 12's and which station you are at.

We do some 9-1-1 and light/siren responses. Not many. We also have a contract with the county corners office. That means we pick up descendants from accident scenes, crime scenes, or when directed by the coroners office and transport to the coroners office/county morgue.

ALS runs require you to have a Paramedic aboard. Sometimes we only have 1 medic for a shift, sometimes we have enough to pair them with a Basic for each truck. If you dont have a Medic, you are a BLS truck. The majority of our calls are doctors appointments, patient discharges, and interfacility transfers.

We run hard most days so I think $14 would be reasonable for an EMT-B here, but I am not the boss or company owner. Our quarters for the day (or longer) are not the best. Our furniture is outdoor lawn furniture (because of bed bugs) and the bunks are terribly uncomfortable and hot.

I am a FT EMT, so I get 48 hours/week, which puts me automatically in OT. We have room to pick up more OT as EMT's or fill the Ambulette (wheelchair vans) spots. Its easy money but again, we run hard. Sometimes 2+hours driving with some of these patients isnt worth it. I got my card to fight more fire but I figured I would do this until I found something better with better pay.
 
KnightRider said:
hometownmedic5 is correct. You are asking way too many variables. Its going to depend on the company. Pay as an EMT-B sucks. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to do this at all for the low pay. My company starts EMT-B's at $12/HR and is a flat rate across the board. Another area company starts $15/HR but changes depending if you do 24's or if you do 12's and which station you are at.

We do some 9-1-1 and light/siren responses. Not many. We also have a contract with the county corners office. That means we pick up descendants from accident scenes, crime scenes, or when directed by the coroners office and transport to the coroners office/county morgue.

ALS runs require you to have a Paramedic aboard. Sometimes we only have 1 medic for a shift, sometimes we have enough to pair them with a Basic for each truck. If you dont have a Medic, you are a BLS truck. The majority of our calls are doctors appointments, patient discharges, and interfacility transfers.

We run hard most days so I think $14 would be reasonable for an EMT-B here, but I am not the boss or company owner. Our quarters for the day (or longer) are not the best. Our furniture is outdoor lawn furniture (because of bed bugs) and the bunks are terribly uncomfortable and hot.

I am a FT EMT, so I get 48 hours/week, which puts me automatically in OT. We have room to pick up more OT as EMT's or fill the Ambulette (wheelchair vans) spots. Its easy money but again, we run hard. Sometimes 2+hours driving with some of these patients isnt worth it. I got my card to fight more fire but I figured I would do this until I found something better with better pay.
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Ok so as BLS i cant “work” on patiemts? Only trasnport them?
 
John Trammell Jr said:
Ok so as BLS i cant “work” on patiemts? Only trasnport them?
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If you're patient requires only BLS and you're on a truck that's BLS or the company allows the medic to hand off to you then you'd be doing patient care. Which is pretty much oxygen if indicated, taking a set of vitals and keeping the psych from going any crazier.
 
Lo2w said:
If you're patient requires only BLS and you're on a truck that's BLS or the company allows the medic to hand off to you then you'd be doing patient care. Which is pretty much oxygen if indicated, taking a set of vitals and keeping the psych from going any crazier.
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Ok bc i wanna help people in need. Thats why i chose EMS
 
John Trammell Jr said:
Ok bc i wanna help people in need. Thats why i chose EMS
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See if you can do a ride a long with a local department, you seem to have unrealistic expectations of what this job is. If you can't do that try and find a ambulance crew or two and ask them about the job. They will also be the best source of information for what the job market in your area is. A majority of this job is holding someone's hand and transporting people from one location to another.
 
I concur with the suggestion for you to do a ride along. You don't seem to have any realistic frame of reference for this job. Get one before you even put a deposit on EMT school or I feel you'll be the guy who quits in less than a month. Maybe when you know what to expect you'll still decide to go forward, but right now I think you have a Hollywood view on EMS and that's a recipe for failure. Also, and this isn't a personal attack just a statement of fact, it doesn't sound like you can afford a lark so it would be a good idea to know what you're getting into.

Google "101 things we should teach every EMT". Theres a lot of good points there.
 
John Trammell Jr said:
Ok so as BLS i cant “work” on patiemts? Only trasnport them?
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Ok, what DO you know (or at least think you know) about being an EMT? I'm not trying to sound like an @** but it's kind of painfully obvious you don't know much of anything about EMS in your area.

Your profile says your a student....but does that actually include being a student in an EMT program? Because reading over this thread it seems like you don't really know what IFT is, and I wouldn't be 100% surprised if you didn't really know what ALS is and an EMTs role with it. Don't take this as an insult or attack against you, because I never even knew there was any difference between an EMT and a Paramedic until I was enrolling in EMT school myself....which is ok, but maybe you should worry about actually becoming an EMT and learning all this stuff in class first before trying to break down things like overtime pay?

The problem is that you're asking pointed specific questions about the specific job market in your little corner of the world....on a relatively anonymous international forum. Seriously, we have people here from Canada and even New Zealand on here. I myself grew up and cut my teeth on EMS in southern California, currently living in Hawaii, I would consider myself woefully inadequate to comment on the ability of a Basic and his gf to afford an apartment even in nearby places like Las Vegas that I've visited a bunch because I still don't really know the cost of living there and can't give any reliable advice.

Even if you were asking about moving into the same zip code I lived and working at my last job.....I would still only be able to give you glittering generalities about the affordability of an apartment in that situation. Because I don't know the first thing about your financial situation.....maybe your responsible with money and only owe a couple hundred bucks in non-rent/utilities a month....or maybe you have $50,000 of debt across 5 credit cards whose monthly payments add up to $1500/month and you can't afford the same apartment working the same job as the first option?

This is YOUR life, YOUR financial situation, YOU need to do the research on on whether or not you can afford it. Like I said, I'm not trying to come off like an *$$, just speaking (a sometimes hard) truth. It isn't easy, in fact it's a calculation I'm still struggling with myself lol

But to help point you in the right direction....figure out who employs EMT-Bs in your area (at least within how far your willing to commute), then you can do some research (look at their websites or even call and ask) figure out the pay rate and average hours worked a week. Some simple math will turn that into a monthly gross pay. Add your gf's take home pay, then take that and subtract your bills, don't forget to figure in taxes, and look at some apt ads to figure out rents....then it's just a discussion of how much extra money you're willing to live with/without.....or maybe rents are just too expensive and cost more than your income and you have to start looking into living in a different (cheaper) area (how does that mean with your commuting distance? Maybe you have to look at different jobs that may be different enough in pay to cause you to have to redo the whole thing)....welcome to adulthood lol
 
Sign up with the Armed Services and request combat medic. They'll take care of your housing and provide all the extra hours you could want to boot. As a plus, recruiters are more than happy to answer questions from inquisitive folks.
 
Jim37F said:
Ok, what DO you know (or at least think you know) about being an EMT? I'm not trying to sound like an @** but it's kind of painfully obvious you don't know much of anything about EMS in your area.

Your profile says your a student....but does that actually include being a student in an EMT program? Because reading over this thread it seems like you don't really know what IFT is, and I wouldn't be 100% surprised if you didn't really know what ALS is and an EMTs role with it. Don't take this as an insult or attack against you, because I never even knew there was any difference between an EMT and a Paramedic until I was enrolling in EMT school myself....which is ok, but maybe you should worry about actually becoming an EMT and learning all this stuff in class first before trying to break down things like overtime pay?

The problem is that you're asking pointed specific questions about the specific job market in your little corner of the world....on a relatively anonymous international forum. Seriously, we have people here from Canada and even New Zealand on here. I myself grew up and cut my teeth on EMS in southern California, currently living in Hawaii, I would consider myself woefully inadequate to comment on the ability of a Basic and his gf to afford an apartment even in nearby places like Las Vegas that I've visited a bunch because I still don't really know the cost of living there and can't give any reliable advice.

Even if you were asking about moving into the same zip code I lived and working at my last job.....I would still only be able to give you glittering generalities about the affordability of an apartment in that situation. Because I don't know the first thing about your financial situation.....maybe your responsible with money and only owe a couple hundred bucks in non-rent/utilities a month....or maybe you have $50,000 of debt across 5 credit cards whose monthly payments add up to $1500/month and you can't afford the same apartment working the same job as the first option?

This is YOUR life, YOUR financial situation, YOU need to do the research on on whether or not you can afford it. Like I said, I'm not trying to come off like an *$$, just speaking (a sometimes hard) truth. It isn't easy, in fact it's a calculation I'm still struggling with myself lol

But to help point you in the right direction....figure out who employs EMT-Bs in your area (at least within how far your willing to commute), then you can do some research (look at their websites or even call and ask) figure out the pay rate and average hours worked a week. Some simple math will turn that into a monthly gross pay. Add your gf's take home pay, then take that and subtract your bills, don't forget to figure in taxes, and look at some apt ads to figure out rents....then it's just a discussion of how much extra money you're willing to live with/without.....or maybe rents are just too expensive and cost more than your income and you have to start looking into living in a different (cheaper) area (how does that mean with your commuting distance? Maybe you have to look at different jobs that may be different enough in pay to cause you to have to redo the whole thing)....welcome to adulthood lol
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I understand your trying to help. No offense taken. I am not a student yet i dont know why it says that. But i am interested in EMS although i dont know alot about it.
 
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