That's really interesting. All ALS on the units? Huh, I think that's the first time I've ever heard of that. Individual municipalities, sure, but nothing state wide. Are there a lot of staffing problems because of that? Does it keep down the level of whackers? How do smaller agencies handle the added expense? How well do private services function with BLS transports with ALS crew pay?
I'm very curious how this works on the operations side.
Actually, in GA an EMT-I'85 is considered BLS, even though an I'85 does have a decent scope of practice.
Staffing seems to be of no problem anywhere that I've heard of or seen. If anything, places are usually always looking for medics.
We don't usually have any whackers running around, plus PD is usually good in finding the few that are out there.
Most agencies around here(the greater metro Atlanta area) is all private service seperate from the FD's. Their's only two FD's around here that do transport(Douglas County Fire and Dekalb County Fire). Everyone else contracts out to privates. One hospital has it's own EMS(Grady EMS, part of Grady Memorial Hospital).
Most, but not all of the companies have their systems set up to have atleast a few BLS trucks with two I'85s onboard and as such mostly run BLS transfers. However, occasionally they will run 911 calls that get dispatched out as BLS calls. This is because the county 911 systems follow the EMD process.
For the ALS trucks that get sent on BLS transfers and 911 calls, usually the I'85 will tech the call, but it still will be billed as an ALS call because the Paramedic still does an ALS assessment.
It's a weird process and I'm not 100% sure on the billing aspect of things but that is what is put in the PCR because it is a ALS truck and the Paramedic always does an ALS assessment.
The private services seem to be doing just fine. 1 of the 2 largest companies in the area just replaced their entire fleet of trucks from type III's to the sprinters and upgraded to LP15's for the entire fleet(were talking about 50 plus trucks). The other service gave their employees a pretty nice pay raise.
