City deserves to continue high level emergency/ambulance service

To The Daily Sun,

To the taxpayers, business owners, residents, and visitors of the City of Laconia:

As you may be aware, the EMS (ambulance service) contract between LRGH and the city will be coming to an end on June 30 of this year. As a brief history, the city considered privatizing the ambulance service in the mid-90s; In 1996 LRGH stepped in, realizing the value of having a fire department-based ambulance service. For over 20 years, it has worked out well — LRGH provided ambulances, equipment and salaries to the city, and in return, LRGH did all of the billing and collected all of the revenue. Due to a number of circumstances, including billing and collections practices, revenues did not keep up. After considering all of the factors, LRGH has opted to end the agreement.

When you look at the statistics, in a large percentage (over 90 percent) of communities that have privatized their ambulance services, the fire department still responds first to most or all medical emergencies in the community. Given that, if the Laconia Fire Department would still be responding to all of the same calls — doesn’t it make sense for us to continue to provide the ambulance service? If city firefighters and city fire apparatus will be responding to all of these emergency calls, then why shouldn’t we also be offsetting the budget by generating the revenue associated from the ambulance calls?

Something else to consider — the city has already contracted with a billing company for our ambulance service. Given the number of patients we see, the number of patients we transport in our ambulances, and the insurance make-up of the city, the billing company is confident that given a worst-case scenario, taxpayers wouldn’t notice anything different (i.e. no negative expense in the budget). From a budgeting perspective, the only thing that would be different is the revenue generated from ambulance billing would come from a billing company and not LRGH.

The city expects, and quite frankly, rightfully deserves, this high level of service to continue. We hope you understand we have the best interests of the city in mind. All of the men and women who work for the Laconia Fire Department have made an investment in the city — and it starts from day one. We all know that “knowing” the city is about a lot more than knowing a street address, apartment number, or intersection. Our staff is experienced and vetted, and we are engaged — we understand the “ins and outs” and the needs of the community. We understand how to best serve those needs, and how to provide the city with a very well-rounded service.

The city manager, the chief officers, the captains, lieutenants and firefighters, the Laconia Professional Firefighters, LRGH, and Quick Med Claims (the billing company) have been working almost non-stop for the last six-to-eight months to ensure that you will see no change in the level of service, the delivery of the service, or the impact to the city for providing the same service.

At the end of the day, we believe that contracting out to a private ambulance service will severely reduce the level of service provided to the taxpayers, business owners, residents, and visitors of the city. While the employees that work for a private ambulance service may be very good providers, the ambulance company itself has one goal and one goal only ... to make a profit. The men and women of the Laconia Fire Department have been providing you with top-notch service for the past couple of decades, and we have worked hard to gain your trust and your respect.

If you agree, please express your support and contact your city councilor at citycouncil@laconianh.gov or visit www.laconianh.gov/directory.aspx?did=37 for the phone numbers for your councilors.

Respectfully, and on behalf of the Executive Board of IAFF Local 1153,

Jason Griffin, President

Laconia Professional Firefighters