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If and how to keep ambulance services in Washington County are the questions a new subcommittee of the board of supervisors will look to answer. At Tuesday’s meeting, the supervisors explained that the current contract with independent Washington County Ambulance is set to end in June. Supervisor Richard Young, who is also the director of Washington County Ambulance, said this is a problem statewide as ambulance services are no longer receiving the reimbursements they used to, “A lot of it is due to the fact the reimbursement when the state changed to MCOs. The income is no longer there. Even the medic ambulance service in the Quad Cities, which is one of the premier ambulance services in Iowa. A little over a month ago, went to their board of supervisors and asked if they’d sign a 28E agreement where they would become another county entity. Currently every county is in this boat.”

Supervisor Abe Miller said, “So, they’re kind of forcing the taxpayer to pick up the difference the MCOs are not covering. Is that correct?” Currently, Washington County pays approximately $490,000 annually for services and to help upgrade ambulances from the county’s general basic levy, which equals about 37.9-cents per $1,000 assessed value on property.

In 2018, the Washington County Ambulance helped people locally with 1,884 transports and responded another 577 times, with no transport. So far this year, there have been 1,420 transports provided by the ambulance and 498 responses with no transport. Those responses may include people who refuse care or situations where it’s found there’s no injury, like at a fire or car wreck.

Seward explained that the six options to look at include: 1. whether or not to continue ambulance services in Washington County; 2. whether to contract with an outside service; 3. to form a commission or a 28E with all the cities in the county to provide ambulance services; 4. to have a non-profit organization formed to provide services; 5. for ambulance services to be run by Washington County Hospital and Clinics; or 6. to have a county-operated ambulance service.

If citizens want the same level of care and want to move to a county-owned option, then a voter referendum to raise taxes would need to be held in March of 2020. That would set a tax levy for up to five years for the service. In order to have it be up for public vote, the supervisors must decide by January to put it on the ballot.

Currently, ambulance services are not designated as an essential service at the state level and do not receive funding as such, which Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen pointed out, “If you want to use your voice, talk to your representatives, your senators at the state level. EMS needs to be an essential service in the state. There have been a couple of, in the last year or two, there’s been legislation that’s trying to get it there, but they’ve not been quite right so they haven’t passed. So encourage your representatives to keep working on this so we don’t have to worry about it coming to a vote at some point.”

The supervisors voted to formally establish an advisory subcommittee to look at the issue and bring back a proposal. The subcommittee will be chaired by Young and Seward and will include representatives from city councils, the fire department association, emergency medical services, WCHC, public health, and WEDG.