AMR will continue to hold the contract in Riverside, Ca
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Amberlamps916
Droog
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Nice. Let's see what happens with AMR's San Bernardino County contracts that are up soon as well. It's a much more volatile situation than Riverside's.
CALEMT
The Other Guy/ Paramaybe?
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Well thats good news considering I just got hired there haha
DesertMedic66
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Rumor has it that SB county fire wants to take over transport for all of SB county.
Amberlamps916
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It's very true. County fire is in a legal battle with the state over it right now. Tension is super high on scene between County fire and AMR as a result. The same consultant group, Abaris, that did the Riverside study, voluntarily withdrew from the San Bernardino County study because of the insane amounts of pressure to put AMR in a bad light. Rumors are their study was too AMR friendly and County fire and Tom Lynch, ICEMA'S administrator (who is responsible for AMR losing key contracts in Northern California) didn't like that.
socalmedic
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AMR doesnt often (read: EVER) loose 1797.201 battles. for SBcoFD to takeover transports the county will have to go to competative bid and SBcoFD will have to be the winning bidder for each and every EOA it wants.
I invite you to look into:
VALLEY MEDICAL TRANSPORT INC v. APPLE VALLEY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT
Schaefer's Ambulance Service v. County of San Bernardino (1998)
68 Cal. App. 4th 581 [80 Cal. Rptr. 2]
and
County of San Bernardino v. City of San Bernardino, supra, 15 Cal. 4th at p. 921, fn. 1.
as AMR has been the continuous provider of EMS services since prior to 1981 and has continued to provide the same services to all of its EOAs which were awarded in 1985 (the only time they have been awarded) the only way to re-award any of the EOAs held by AMR is for a competitive bid.
additionally if the county allows the department to assume transport under the auspice of universal service to the county and county rights they may be violating federal anti-trust laws, similar cases can be read here:
County of San Bernardino v. City of San Bernardino, supra, 15 Cal. 4th at pp. 917-918
Memorial Hospitals Assn. v. Randol (1995) 38 Cal. App. 4th 1300, 1308-1309 [45 Cal.Rptr.2d 547]
A-1 Ambulance Service, Inc. v. County of Monterey (9th Cir. 1996) 90 F.3d 333, 335-337.)
only time will tell what route the county plans on taking, I predict that AMR will continue to hold the 'berdu contract as well because the county is broke and doesn't have the pockets to fight a court case of such magnitude.
Now, I'm just a street medic, you obviously know WAY more about this than me, so it's possibly you'll tell me I'm completely wrong and I'll just accept that.
It seems to me, though, that a county department could easily underbid (and still remain profitable against) a private company for any contract they wanted. Now, granted, AMR is the extreme example of "private company", but still, a county department has a bunch of the support structure that they have to provide no matter what
The flip side, of course, is that AMR could always bid at a loss, but I don't really see that happening, though there could be political payoffs that I'm oblivious to.
socalmedic
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okay, bear with me here its 4am and I have been awake for 36 hours. I will attempt to stay on topic and keep spelling and grammatical errors to a minimum. but the question you ask has far too many facets to even attempt a cohesive written response.
you are not "Just a street medic", you are a Paramedic. and you are correct that a county department could bid lower than AMR based on their size (in business its called economies of scale). however AMR or Envision Healthcare, the parent company, has a much larger benefit when it comes to economies of scale because of the vast size of the company and how much stuff they purchase yearly.
the following numbers are arbitrary as I have no clue what the real numbers are.
here is an example AMR and SBCO both put in an order to McKesson for a case of gloves and 4x4's. because SBco may only order 100 cases of gloves per year and 10 cases of 4x4's McKesson bills them $3000.00 and then $50 for shipping. however beacuse this will be just a small part of AMRs order for the year lets say 10,000 cases of gloves and 1000 cases of 4x4s AMR will be billed at a negotiated rate of lets say cost +10%, or $2000.00 for the same order that the county placed because the supplier knows that AMR will order more and they want to keep them as a customer. the same goes for ambulances... AMR pays much less than anyone else for the same stuff because of their purchasing power.
then we have to look at the personnel cost, lets assume the county will run the ambulances with non-union, non-classified, non-firemen with the same hourly rate as AMR, the overhead staff needed by the county would cost considerably more than AMR because they would have to up staff HR, and Administration to accommodate the approximately 1000 new county employees, whereas AMR already has the HR and Admin staffing for 18,000 employees the 1000 or so berdo employees are merely a drop in the bucket.
and then finally we run back into the anti-trust laws, its illegal to knowingly bid at a loss for the purposes of underbidding. working for a loss is not sustainable for the county unless they plan on subsidizing the cost with increased taxes or special district fees which I doubt the voters (ie, tax payers) would approve of.
so to answer your question, in theory yes the county could possibly submit a bid that is lower cost but in reality there is no way the county could operate at a lower cost.
now the plot thickens with one last detail, a competitive bid does not necessarily mean the LOWEST bid, it means the BEST bid. It is the county board of commissioners who decides what is BEST bid, not the fire department. Now I will say that bribery is illegal and AMR would never do that... but making campaign contributions is not illegal, and AMR loves to support politicians....
one last tidbit in support of AMRs political machine.
I think it would be interesting to know who tipped Dr. Backer (CA EMSA Director) off to OCFA and their "bidding process" for ambulances in which the highest ranked bids some how don't get selected. seeing how Care who may or may not have been the benefactor of these "competitive" bids, was recently bought by Faulk AMRs biggest threat, and AMR recently bought Doctor's ambulance which happens to be one of the other two ambulances who could win the new bidding process if controlled by the county... and does anybody remember that silly bill that the firefighters tried to get passed that would require private employees to remove all county names from their uniform? yea that didn't pass either, oddly enough it was the OCFA union that wrote that bill... how the world turns...
Fair enough, I bow to your superior knowledge of the subject, and congratulate you on your cohesiveness, given that I doubt I could have done so well 24 hours ago when I was in your position.
For what it's worth, btw, when I said I'm just a street medic, what I meant is that I provide damn fine care in the back of a truck, but resist vigorously every time someone tries to put me behind a desk. I discovered the hard way when I owned a bakery that my business skills are so poor, they actually make random business I walk past lose money.
For what it's worth, btw, when I said I'm just a street medic, what I meant is that I provide damn fine care in the back of a truck, but resist vigorously every time someone tries to put me behind a desk. I discovered the hard way when I owned a bakery that my business skills are so poor, they actually make random business I walk past lose money.
DesertMedic66
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How so?
SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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Sometimes it's not what you know, but who you know.
Also, deep pockets will get you pretty far, and you can know a lot of people if you have deep pockets.
Also, deep pockets will get you pretty far, and you can know a lot of people if you have deep pockets.
SandpitMedic
Crowd pleaser
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Physical challenge:
Someone find a real world example of any Envision (AMR or subsidiary) ambulance service getting completely booted out of an EOA and was replaced by a government transporting entity.
Ready? Set. GO!
Someone find a real world example of any Envision (AMR or subsidiary) ambulance service getting completely booted out of an EOA and was replaced by a government transporting entity.
Ready? Set. GO!
DesertMedic66
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Yep, already got that from your last post (saying the exact same thing). Care to elaborate?
Don't quite understand the hidden link your post but ok
Last edited by a moderator:
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If any one notices hidden links in posts, please report them to the Community Leaders so we can deal with it.
terrible one
Always wandering
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AMR in RivCo?!?!? End of the world!!!! - according to those areas fire departments.
DesertMedic66
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Mostly heard from Murrieta fire
terrible one
Always wandering
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This is true. I love the quote by their chief about a competitive bidding process makes the service cheaper. Why not put a bid out to Cal Fire and see how much the citizens of Murrieta save instead of running their own department.
socalmedic
Mediocre at best
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how dare you... +1
terrible one
Always wandering
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You are right AMR should actually pay that department because they cannot function without fire first responders as stated in the article. Haha