County Legislature backs legislative package to ‘Rescue EMS’

Photo by Tom Rivers: A Monroe Ambulance is parked near the scene of a fatal Albion fire at Oak Orchard Estates in the early morning hours of April 15. Monroe became the primary ambulance responder in central Orleans County after COVA Ambulance ceased operations in December 2022.

ALBION – The Orleans County Legislature is backing a package of state legislation that officials believe will help make emergency medical services more sustainable financially and with personnel.

The county said EMS providers are in crisis due to rising costs of care and high demand for increasingly complex services.

Locally, COVA Ambulance and the Kendall Fire Department both ceased their ambulance services after 2022.

The seven towns in eastern and central Orleans now are contracting with Monroe Ambulance to keep an ambulance in the county and be the primary responder. That contract is for $300,000 in 2024. The towns weren’t paying anything for the service in 2022. The Medina Fire Department handles most of the calls in western Orleans.

“EMS is a form of healthcare and is subject to the same escalating costs as the rest of the healthcare industry,” county legislators stated in a resolution on Tuesday. “Municipalities that operate EMS departments, or contract for services with those that do, feel the ongoing financial strain of these costs that are far outpacing inflation.”

Legislators said local governments are hindered by the current laws in collaborating on joint EMS services across municipal and county boundaries. The laws prohibit counties and local municipalities from creating joint taxing districts for EMS services.

“Orleans County urges the State Legislature to amend the General Municipal Law to allow flexibility within local governments to help solve the issues within the EMS crisis and to consider EMS an essential service,” legislators stated in the resolution.

The current law should be changed to allow for joint taxing districts, property tax exemptions, EMS medical reimbursements, income and property tax credits and increase of tax income credit, legislators said.

The County Legislature said it is in “full support” of the “Rescuing Local Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Package” proposed by the New York State Association of Counties.

The NYSAC package includes:

• S.4020-B (Mayer) / A.3392-B (Otis): Special Taxing Districts & EMS Being Deemed an Essential Service. This comprehensive legislation package allows special taxing districts to be created to fund EMS services. In addition, this legislation would recognize EMS as an essential service and provide reform to the Emergency Medical Services Council.
• S.5000 (May) / A.4077 (Lupardo): Property Tax Exemption for EMS Services. This Legislation would remove EMS services from the real property tax cap, which would allow local municipalities to expend and better support their local EMS services. This measure is needed in the short-term while other solutions are being discussed.
• S.8486 (Hinchey) / A.9102 (Kelles): Authorization of the Reimbursement for Treatment in Place and Transportation to Alternative Destinations. This Legislature authorizes Medicaid reimbursement to emergency medical services (EMS) agencies for providing Treatment in Place (TIP) to a patient at the point of response; as well as Transportation to an Alternate Provider (TAP), getting a patient to the most appropriate health care setting other than a hospital, such as a mental health clinic rehabilitation facility or urgent care.
• S.6630 (Mannion) / A.6274 (Barrett): Income tax and Property Tax Credits. This legislation allows volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers’ personal income tax credit from $200 to $800 for eligible individuals and from $400 to $1,600 for eligible married joint filers.
• S.3223 (Sanders) / A.9237 (Hevesi): Targeted Medicaid Rate Increase for EMS Providers. This bill would create a methodology for ambulance reimbursement under Medicaid that more closely approximates the cost of providing services. Ambulances are required by law to pick everyone up, including Medicaid patients. It is unfair to require these ambulances companies to accept Medicaid patients and then not fairly reimburse them for the costs of providing services to these patients.
• S.6645 (Comrie) / A.6136 (Eachus): Thruway Permits for EMS Vehicles. This legislation requires the thruway authority to issue emergency services permits to EMS vehicles as is already done for fire apparatus, which would exempt EMS from being required to pay tolls while transporting patients on the NYS Thruway.