Changes in ambulance service leave rural Edmond residents with service roulette

You work in Oklahoma City and shop, eat and perhaps have children that attend school in Edmond, but live outside of both. If you want 24/7 assurances you are covered for ambulance associated costs health insurance won't pay, how many provider subscriptions do you need?

The answer is at least three if you live in either the Oak Cliff Fire Protection District in southern Logan County north of Edmond or the Deer Creek Fire Protection district in northwestern Oklahoma County.

Deer Creek and Oak Cliff residents have a new ambulance service provider — Miller Emergency Medical Services.

Surprised? Don't feel bad — ambulance services are something most people don't think about until they're needed.

Until the end of 2023, residents' emergency medical transports inside those fire districts were handled by EMSA, which until then also had been providing its services to all residents with Edmond ZIP codes for the past 30 years.

But after emergency workers and elected leaders inside of Edmond became frustrated with EMSA's response times, they decided to seek bids from other ambulance providers.

Earlier this year, Edmond agreed to pay AMR $660,000 annually to provide it with ambulance services.

However, AMR only agreed to provide its services inside of Edmond's city limits, leaving the fire protection districts (both of which use Edmond ZIP codes) facing the prospect of being uncovered until Miller agreed to step in.

Here's the subscriptions you need.

• Oklahoma City residents (or people who think they might need the service while there) can enroll in the EMSAcare program to ensure they aren't hit with uninsured costs. Residents can agree to belong by paying $3.65 on their monthly utility bills. Others can join by paying EMSA directly, at an annual cost of $45 per household.

• Edmond residents (or people who think they might need the service while there) can enroll in the same type of program offered by AMR. Residents can belong to a program that pays for non-insurance covered costs on up to two uses a year by agreeing to pay a $3 monthly fee on their utility bills or by enrolling directly with AMR at an annual cost of $65.

• Miller offers people in the areas it serves subscriptions that cover non-insured medical costs when it makes emergency calls. The annual cost per household is $84 a year.

Ambulances cost money just like police and fire services

How basic ambulance services are paid for also is a question that probably attracts little thought.

Oklahoma City currently is paying EMSA $5.3 million annually to cover its 620 square miles, while the $660,000 Edmond is paying AMR covers its 87.55 square miles.

Rural residents also can vote to form and fund ambulance districts. However, state law dictates those can only be formed to cover a complete county, or an area school district inside of a county.

Three rural ambulance districts cover the attendance areas for Guthrie, Crescent and Cashion Public Schools inside of Logan County.

Miller provides emergency medical transports within the Cashion district, which touches the Deer Creek school district within Logan County's southwest quadrant.

With its expansion into Deer Creek and Oak Cliff, Miller is reminding people within the Cashion district memberships to cover non-insured costs are available.

Fire protection districts not authorized to provide ambulance service, currently

Under Oklahoma law, rural area residents can call elections to establish and fund fire protection districts.

While their firefighters are trained to provide emergency medical services on calls, they are not allowed under state law to collect funds that would allow them to provide ambulance service directly or through a contracted provider.

Oak Cliff fire Protection District was created in 1982 and today provides services out of two fire stations equipped with about a dozen pieces of firefighting equipment. Oak Cliff responds to about 1,300 calls annually. It's annual operating budget for Fiscal 2022 was just more than $1 million.

The Deer Creek Fire Protection District was established in 1976 and today covers 52.51 square miles with three engines, two tankers, five brush pumpers and two command vehicles deployed out of two stations. It's annual budget for Fiscal 2022 was $897,225.

How much is Miller being paid to provide ambulance service to the two districts?

Miller is being paid $50,000 to provide services to the two fire protection districts through the end of June.

Oklahoma County Commissioner Myles Davidson paid that bill using American Rescue Plan Act of 2022 funds that were paid to Deer Creek's fire protection district (which covers far northwest Oklahoma and far southwest Logan County). Deer Creek, in turn, contracted with Miller to cover both its and Oak Cliff's districts.

Davidson told The Oklahoman he expects to have about $300,000 in discretionary funding available at the start of the coming fiscal year, saying he plans to use at least a portion of that to keep the areas covered during the coming fiscal year.

"I will find a way to get that funded. My biggest concern is Deer Creek's school. There's no way I am going to leave it without ambulance services," he said. "We are just going to have to figure it out."

Meanwhile, Davidson, two other Logan County commissioners and representatives of the two fire protection districts are working to get state law changed so fire districts can ask their voters to authorize the collection of additional property taxes so they can furnish ambulance services in the future.

They hope to introduce a bill to achieve their goal next year. If it were to become law, voters would be asked to consider increasing their levies to pay for the additional service probably the following year.

What fire officials recommend in the meantime

Cory J. Beagles, chief of Deer Creek's fire protection district, said he has relatives who live inside the districts but work in Oklahoma City and take care of most of their day-to-day business in Edmond.

When it became apparent EMSA would not serve the fire protection districts, the boards for both his district and Oak Cliff's tried to reach an agreement with AMR to pick up coverage in their areas.

"We really wanted to prevent people from having to obtain three different memberships" to cover un-insured ambulance costs, Beagles said.,

AMR, however, wanted to be paid $550,000 annually to provide service.

Beagles said both districts are fortunate Miller was willing to expand into their areas. The ambulance service plans to station an ambulance at a Deer Creek station around the clock starting later this year.

"We have been extremely pleased with Miller so far," Beagles said, noting it already has cut ambulance response times in half. "Once that ambulance is positioned, waits for emergency medical service transports should drop even more dramatically," he said.

As for constituents being surprised with uninsured ambulance costs, the chief said he is telling them its better to be safe than sorry.

"I am recommending that they obtain memberships to all three services. That's really the only way to do it if you are going to cover all of your bases," said Chief Beagles.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Change means rural Edmond residents need multiple ambulance plans