Polk County commissioners have decided to seek bids for ambulance services.
The decision came at the conclusion of the commission’s ambulance committee meeting Tuesday, June 23. County commissioners had heard three different options to renew their current contract with American Medical Response (AMR), but had taken no action and referred the matter to the committee.
The county, whose contract ended June 30, has been granted a 120 day extension by AMR to make a decision.
County Executive Robby Hatcher told committee members, “They (AMR) want to cut back to two ambulances here, four ambulances there, so let’s let them run their business.”
“Let’s put it on a percentage pay, or percentage of doing, and what I mean by that, by talking with ambulance services, is we would have two zones. We would have city zones and boarder of the county zones.”
Hatcher proposed bidding out the service and setting up a contract where an ambulance service must meet a certain percentage of calls in a certain time frame and impose a penalty for not meeting those requirements.
“I’m not saying the dispatchers are doing anything wrong,” Hatcher said later. “I’m not saying the ambulance service is doing anything wrong, but I believe everybody would agree you’ve had a call or complaint between the ambulance and or the dispatchers.”
Hatcher also recommended setting a six month to one year “trial basis,” then move forward if both parties are in agreement.
District 2 Commissioner Greg Brooks said he would like a further explanation for the proposed $300,000 increase from AMR.
District 2 Commissioner Dewey Esquinance moved to allow Hatcher to pursue bids for the percentages method as well as bids for how the contract is now. The motion passed.