Medibart

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Posts posted by Medibart

  1. Posted

    Westchester EMS is the ambulance department for the four Stellaris hospitals - Lawrence, Northern Westchester, Phelps and White Plains. Additionally we operate the paramedic fly-car system for the 8 towns in the scenic Northeast corner of the county. We are a not for profit entity. We offer competitive pay and an excellent benefit package including a top notch Oxford Medical Insurance plan with very low employee contribution, dental insurance, life insurance, long term disability insurance, matched 403B plan, additional pension, uniforms, tuition reimbursement, reduced auto insurance, gym membership reimbursement and many more benefits. FT employees also receive vacation time, personal time, paid holidays and sick time. We also offer very flexible scheduling options.

    We are looking for EMTs and paramedics who thrive in a customer service oriented environment. WEMS is a hospital oriented organization and is not a typical commercial service. Full time and per-diem positions are currently available.

    Would you like to learn more? Message me here or email me at sglaessgen@stellarishealth.org or call 914-244-0440 x 14.

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Operations Supervisor

    Westchester EMS

  3. Posted

    Turning things into a dollar and cents game is dangerous. Who cares what it costs? Tax me what its going to take to create a system to get me an ambulance when i need one. I'm all for municipal EMS 110% - its alot simpler that way. You call they come. The only thing i would caution is the commercial bashing. Being critical is important, but there is two sides to every story. Lets not forget local governments appear to have or currently are trying to drive the cost of having EMS down so far that it may become difficult for a commercial agency to live up to the contract. On the same token, if an agency is turfing calls to MA agencies or violating terms of a contract willingly then thats just as much of an issue.

    If an EMS agency (of any type) tells a community they can provide EMS for free or very inexpensively, then I don't think it's wrong for a community to expect that service for free or very inexpensively. We, as EMS providers, have a responsibility to the communities we serve to properly educate them as to the need and the actual cost of providing EMS. Without us providing that education, how can you blame a community for being uneducated?

    The costs of running an ALS ambulance 24 hours a day can easily be in the $5 - 600,000 range. To offset that entirely given a generous average collection of $300 per transport (not per call - RMAs, cancelled calls, standbys etc don't count). To offset the full cost that would mean you would need 1667 - 2000 transports per year. If you were running that kind of volume, more than likely you would have a lot of difficulty covering all the calls with one bus, especially if you have any length of transport time.

    How an agency can run a 24/7 ALS bus that costs that much money and charge a community 0, 15, 25 or even 125 thousand, without the necessary transport volume to offset the cost, and not lose a lot of money on the deal is really a mystery to me.

    But I don't necessarily blame a community for saying yes when an ambulance company promises to provide the service for free or at a loss. Hopefully, other communities will look at the experience in Pawling and be wary and see the dangers in the deal that sounds too good to be true.

  4. Posted

    Not defending anyones actions but EMS isn't cheap. 

    24x7 ALS ambulance

    4.5 Paramedics @ $50,000 with benefits =$225,000

    4.5 EMTS          @ $25,000 with benefits= $112,500

    Equipment, Supplies, administrative support $50,000

    Total                                                $387,500

    Billing 500 calls @$300 (thats a genrous assupmtion on collections)  $150,000

    Balance (requiring subsidy)  $237,000

    Dutchess county has benfited (or suffered) from ambulance wars for 10 years now which results in town receiving contracts whic were too good to be true.  This has resulted in Sloper folding, Alamo was circling the drain unitil they started dropping these contracts, and NDP in bankruptcy. 

    In Slopers heyday they covers wappingers, fishkill (town and village) as well as New Hamburg as well as a few nursing facilites and some interecept work with 4 ALS trucks.  Respnse times were very  rarely an issue.  Now this same area is covered by 9+ vehicles (with lower tax payer support).  Response times haven't much improved, but you have 3 companies losing money hoping to force the other out and be leftw itht he whole pie.  The pull out in Pawling is the first but probabbly won't be the last incident of this nature.  If you go to other parts of the country these ambulance battles have left whole counties without coverage as comapnies go out of business. 

    Bottom line: EMS is an essential service which should be provided by municipalities.  If billing can offset the cost great but that shouldn't dicate the service level.  I won't cry for the Pawling town board (am concerned for the citizens) who have been playing games witht he subsidy for years.

    Don't forget:

    Benefit time - the employees take vacations and sick days, some of which is covered by OT

    OT - crews get late calls

    Supervision

    Training time - mandatory and other compensated training sessions

    Insurance

    Vehicle depreciation

    Vehicle costs - gas, repairs, insurance etc.

    Equipment depreciation - lifepaks ain't cheap

    Billing charges (8-12%)

    Uniforms

    You're right - a lot of other communities are going to have to deal with the same "sticker shock" as commerical providers decide that doing EMS for free is bad business.

  5. Posted

    Westchester EMS is the ambulance department for the four Stellaris hospitals - Lawrence, Northern Westchester, Phelps and White Plains. Additionally we operate the paramedic fly-car system for the 8 towns in the scenic Northeast corner of the county. We are a not for profit entity. We offer competitive pay and an excellent benefit package including a top notch Oxford Medical Insurance plan with very low employee contribution, dental insurance, life insurance, long term disability insurance, matched 403B plan, additional pension, uniforms, tuition reimbursement, reduced auto insurance, gym membership reimbursement and many more benefits. FT employees also receive vacation time, personal time, paid holidays and sick time. We also offer very flexible scheduling options.

    We are looking for EMTs and paramedics who thrive in a customer service oriented environment. WEMS is a hospital oriented organization and is not a typical commercial service. Full time and per-diem positions are currently available.

    Would you like to learn more? Message me here or email me at sglaessgen@stellarishealth.org or call 914-244-0440 x 14.

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Operations Supervisor

    Westchester EMS

  10. Posted

    Now that many of our EMTs are returning to school to continue their edyu eduka educash to get smarter and we are adding more shifts we are currently hiring FT and PD EMTs and Medics. If interested you can check out our website at: www.westchesterems.org or contact our HR coordinator Janet at 914-273-5454.

    Westchester EMS is the ambulance department for the four Stellaris hospitals - Lawrence, Northern Westchester, Phelps and White Plains. Additionally we operate the paramedic fly car system for the 8 towns in the Northeast corner of the county. We are a not for profit entity. We offer competitive pay and an excellent benefit package including an excellent Oxford Medical Insurance plan with very low employee contribution, dental insurance, life insurance, long term disability insurance, matched 403B plan, additional pension, uniforms, and tuition reimbursement. FT employees also receive vacation time, personal time, paid holidays and sick time.

    I'm also available to answer any questions. Message me here or email me at sglaessgen@stellarishealth.org or call 914-244-0440 x 14.

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Operations Supervisor

    Westchester EMS

  12. Posted

    One of our crews was in the area when the tornado came through and the bus was just missed by flying debris including a toilet which fell out of the sky!! Imagine being the person driving and being killed by a toilet falling on your car. They drove around looking for injured people and ended up at California Closets. Just amazing that there were so few injuries and none of them were serious.

    We had two buses there, who else responded EMSwise?

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Westchester EMS

  13. Posted

    Visited her on Wednesday and she is doing very, very well. This little girl was resuscitated and unquestionably would be dead if not for the extraordinary efforts of civilians, Somers FD and EMS (including WEMS dispatcher Kevin (aka SkubaSam)) and Westchester EMS paramedics, Hamlet and Chris (aka WAS987).

    Great job guys! We are very proud of you!

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Operations Supervisor

    Westchester EMS

  14. Posted

    I agree. And I wish they did use a priority dispatch system, but they do not.

    Armonk is the first agency using EMD priority dispatch with 60-Control, however, this can only be done if the 60-Control dispatcher has the opportunity to interview the patient. So any calls that come from the PD where the 911 caller is not routed to 60-Control will not have an EMD interview done, therefore, the default is ALS. I suspect that as time goes on, more calls will be properly routed and more calls will be triaged properly.

  16. Posted

    Westchester EMS, Stellaris Health and its member hospitals salute all of our employees and all of the Westchester County EMS workers particularly all of the members of the VACs, FDs and PDs who provide EMS here in the northeast corner of the county.

    The following EMS week events are planned:

    Westchester EMS: HQ - 444 E. Main St. next to Northern Westchester Hospital Center

    Tues: BBQ from 3pm - 7pm at our HQ

    Thu: All Day BBQ - Breakfast and Lunch at our HQ

    CME and Call Audit Starting at 1800 at our HQ

    Dropping off at NWHC? Stop by and grab something to eat!

    Lawrence Hospital

    Mon: Breakfast At The ER

    Tues: Lunch At Fast Track - sponsored by Ortho McNeil Pharmaceuticals

    Wed: 1st Annual EMS Appreciation BBQ 12pm - 4pm In The Courtyard (Rain Day - Thurs)

    Thu: Call Audit At Fast Track - 1300

    Fri: Dessert in the ER - 1200 - 1400

    Northern Westchester Hospital Center

    Refreshments in the ER All Week

    Northern Westchester/ Phelps

    Tues, June 13th - EMS Appreciation Dinner/ CME 1800 - 2200 at the Traveler's Rest

    CME - "The Myths and Realities of 'Bird Flu'" by Dr. Michael Skelly, Infectious

    Disease Specialist

    RSVP - Christina at 366-3577 (cwisniewski@pmhc.us)

    or Suzanne at 666-1303 (srishel@nwhc.net)

    Scott T. Glaessgen

    Westchester EMS

  17. Posted

    A topic near and dear.

    No loss with KROCK. Their programming is terrible. How many times do you need to hear the same awful Nickelback song. At least with the Top 40 stations they get rid of the songs quickly. On KROCK the same crap song will linger for months on end.

    The two local radio stations I listen to are 107.1 The Peak and 90.7 WFUV (Fordham University - they have an Irish show on Sundays 12 - 4 I've listened to forever). College stations are still good. There are a few in Connecticut you can listen to in No. Westchester anyway.

    I've had Sirius over a year and love it. Bought a new car in June that had XM and did the three month free trial but I liked Sirius MUCH better so didn't renew my XM subscription. So now I have a factory installed XM radio which is useless.

    www.accuradio.com has my favorite online station. keep it on in the background at work.

  18. Posted

    Below is information regarding a special fund through NAEMT to benefit those EMS personnel personally affected by this tragedy.

    My challenge to my fellow career EMS providers is this: we all work multiple jobs - we all know how easy it is to pick up an extra per diem shift or an extra OT shift. Pick up one extra shift and donate that money to those that need it in our community. These are Medics and EMT's that have lost everything and may no longer have jobs cause there ain't no more people to serve in those communities.

    One Day's Pay - that's my challenge to you. DIG DEEP!!!

    Scott T. Glaessgen, EMT-P

    WEMS/TMAD/SVAC

    P.S. Obviously volunteer EMS personnel can't pick up that extra shift but I challenge all of you also to DIG DEEP!!

    NAEMT EMS and Rescuer Relief Fund

    Many members of the EMS community are asking what they can do to help their

    fellow medics affected by Hurricane Katrina. As NAEMT members know, after

    9-11, NAEMT established the EMS and Rescuer Relief Fund to collect money for

    the victims of the disaster. That fund remains operational.

    NAEMT urges anyone who is able to make a financial donation to send a check

    to the NAEMT EMS and Rescuer Relief Fund c/o the NAEMT Headquarters, PO Box

    1400, Clinton, MS 39060-1400. Credit card donations can be made by calling

    1-800-34-NAEMT. Individual and corporate donations are welcomed and

    corporations are encouraged to match employee contributions. NAEMT has

    pledged to cover the operational costs of the fund, permitting all donations

    to the fund to be distributed in their entirety.

    The money collected will be made available to EMS professionals who need

    help re-building their lives in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina. No

    decisions have been made yet as to precisely when and how the funds will be

    disseminated. After 9-11, NAEMT disseminated $107,553 to assist the families

    of EMS workers who died in the line of duty while responding to the

    terrorist attacks.

    NAEMT Donates $5000 to EMS and Rescuer Relief Fund

    http://www.naemt.org/forTheMedia/Rescuefund.htm

  23. Posted

    Which is worse - an ignorant statement by a desperate and distraught family member claiming that our emergency service workers might be biased - or all of the racist and xenophobic posts in this forum that proved their suspicions correct.

    How do you think that family would feel about the job that the dive teams are doing if they read these posts? How do you think the readers of the Journal News would feel about the job that the dive teams are doing if they read these posts? I think they might just wonder if everything is being done to find this guy.

    I don't think immigrants are here to take my job because guess what I don't want to work at a fast food restaurant and I don't want to pick vegetables and I don't want to towel off cars at the car wash - all of which keep prices down, which keeps consumerism up, which is the cornerstone of our economy by the way.

    What do you think is worse - the illegal immigrant who doesn't pay taxes on their $10K a year income or the billionaire that hides his money to avoid taxes or the Fortune 500 company that keeps their headquarters in the Caymans to avoid taxes or the governtment that continues to pour billions into a missile defense system that has yet to have a successful test. It is purely ignorant to blame these people for our problems - Americans are doing a fine enough job f****** up our country without outside help.

    Get a clue people. The family's statement was out of line, but your statements are worse.

    ](*,) ](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

  24. Posted

    www.capecodfd.com

    Very thorough website for FD, EMS and PD for the Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket area - one of my favorite parts of the country. Includes pics of every apparatus, every station, online scanner, news etc.

    Hours upon hours of buffery for those interested.