FALCK Ambulance in California??

[DitkaIsGod89]

Anyone have any information on Falck Ambulance in California?? Pay rates for EMT's? Medics? Nurses? whats the deal, who are they? any info is great info

 

[Aprz]

Largest ambulance company globally. Within the States, they are the third largest last I checked. Rather than operating under their own name, the often buy other ambulance companies and continue to operate them with that name (eg Care Ambulance In the OC area? Verihealth in San Mateo / San Carlos). In the San Francisco Bay Area, I believe starting pay for an EMT at Verihealth doing a 12 - hour shift is about $16/hour, less if a 24 - hour shift. They are still fairly new to the San Francisco Bay Area (they've been here for about a year), laid off 50 original employees when they acquired Verihealth.

 

[dalmain]

I work for Falck in South Florida. They bought out American Ambulance. I want to move to the West Coast and was looking into possibly transferring to the Northern California area. Here in South Florida they are hiring lots of people. These jobs have high turn over. The pay is not great here. I have no idea how much it would be over there. SF has a high cost of living, so it should be ok. In Florida an EMT starts off at $10-11.

 

[TheLocalMedic]

Falck in northern CA (Sonoma, Mendocino, Sacramento, San Mateo) was previously Verihealth. Falck acquired them, and then the owner of Verihealth turned around and bought the franchise. So basically a fancy name change and new uniforms and equipment. They are primarily BLS IFT service, but also have a CCT, a few ALS IFT units and have recently started running 911/IFT service in Mendocino county in competition with Ukiah ambulance.

To be honest, they started out as bottom feeders that were picking up BLS IFT slack that AMR in Sonoma County was turfing to them, but they have expanded rapidly. Some seem to like working there, but most of the employees I have spoken with admit that it's a stepping stone type of job to get some experience and be more hirable with other agencies. Since their acquisition by Falck, I hear that pay is better, something around $15/hr for EMTs, but otherwise they're pretty much the same.

Unfortunately, because they generally hire brand new students their employees are uniformly inexperienced. Not that that's all bad, I mean, we all need to start somewhere. But they are generally held in fairly low regard by the other agencies in the region. Every once in a while they show up at a traffic accident and are generally running around like excited kids, and are subsequently given a quick dismissal by fire or EMS.

Based on what I've seen, I wouldn't want to work for them. But I was also never that hard up for a job.

 

[Aprz]

The pay is not great here. I have no idea how much it would be over there. SF has a high cost of living, so it should be ok. In Florida an EMT starts off at $10-11.

For most IFT EMT jobs here, the pay is about the same. At my previous company, I got $9.50/hour with call bonuses. They became unionized and now make $11.05/hour with call bonuses. At my current company, it's $11.50/hour with no call bonuses.

For some reason, 911 EMTs make significantly more hourly (>$15/hour), but not sure if that means they make more yearly.