Town hall meeting: Local ambulance services on life support [The Herald, Sharon, Pa.]

Jan. 19—GROVE CITY — Ambulance service business owners are on financial life support.

Doug Dick knows that, because he's one of them.

"I had to take out a loan to ensure our employees continued to get their health insurance," said Dick, principal owner of Superior Ambulance Service and Training Institute in Pine Township.

Dick hosted a town hall meeting Wednesday night at Grove City High School to explain the situation to over 50 Mercer County residents, community government leaders and those in emergency medical services.

Ambulance services are a crucial part of EMS. The expenses are mind-boggling, said Dick and others representing the local industry. A single ambulance fetches $750,000.

But that's a nationwide cost for the industry. Low reimbursement rates from federal Medicare and Medicaid coffers also is widely recognized as a national problem.

Where most of Pennsylvania EMS gets hammered is in a lack of community and county financial tax support, speakers said.

In 2022, Dick asked the 22 communities Superior Ambulance serves in Mercer, Butler and Venango counties to contribute a half-mill in property tax toward the company's operations.

He has also proposed extending the half-mill tax county-wide or a levy 1 percent sales tax on taxable items sold in Mercer County.

Based on 2022 figures, the latter would generate $16 million annually, Dick said.

"This is something that should be front and center," said David Basnak, president and executive director of EmergyCare, an Erie-based non-profit emergency service. The business serves much of Mercer County's northern tier from Transfer to Jamestown and recently acquired Life Force Ambulance of Western PA Inc.

"We have to fix this," he said of the EMS financial situation. "We're better than this."

Basnak said EmergyCare gets tax relief by being a non-profit organization. Still, the economic landscape is brutal.

"We're really feeling it on our operational costs," he said.

During the program, one woman in the audience said she lived in West Virginia where she paid an annual tax of over $100 directed for EMS that helped the industry.

But another man in the audience said he was concerned that an EMS tax would, "just be giving a blank check to a private business."

Joseph Pisano, a Grove City resident, gave an emotional account of needing swift ambulance service in 2005. At the time he was an emergency medical technician,with Superior.

His son was severely injured in a car wreck.

"He had blood coming out of his mouth and ears," Pisano said.

A direct call to Superior resulted in an ambulance arriving 3 minutes earlier than another ambulance response from a 911 call. He credited the fast response to his son's survival.

What the town hall gathering came down were exploring ways to generate tax funds for EMS and how to oversee that the money is properly used.

"It all comes back to a human life," Basnak said.

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