Ambulance enterprise fund will pay for new contract with Cody Regional

WORLAND – The Washakie County Commissioners signed a three-year contract agreement with Cody Regional Health (CRH) to take over the volunteer Washakie County Ambulance Service (WCAS) at a cost of $195,000 a year.

WCAS Director Luke Sypherd and Commissioner Fred Frandson said that the ambulance service has a separate enterprise account for themselves that will pay for the first three years of the contract with CRH.

According to Sypherd, this account has doubled in the three years since he has become the director from $270,000 to an amount that is expected to be around $540,000. This has been able to happen thanks to donations from local/Wyoming businesses, as well as grants being used to help upgrade equipment rather than spending revenues on upgrading equipment.

With upgrading equipment through grants the service has also been able to double their equipment value in the same span of time.

The service currently uses that account to pay the volunteers through the revenues of the service.

Sypherd also offered praise to WCAS Claims Manager Sandy Beck regarding her impact on the in-house billing process for the ambulance service which has significantly improved the billing process.

Sypherd said that with grants it is difficult to find any that help support wages but they were offered a unique opportunity this year with the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) funding being available that helped cover wages for the service in 2020.

Under normal circumstances in the state of Wyoming emergency medical services (EMS) is not considered an essential service but with COVID-19 it has been deemed essential and that critical funding was awarded.

Over just the last three years the county has provided around $100,000 to the service, according to Sypherd most of this funding has been used to pay stipends out to the volunteers to offset the cost of traveling back and forth, missing time from their actual jobs along with other scenarios.

With the expected amount of funding, the service is expected to come close to being able to fund the new contract, but they may have to seek additional grants.

Sypherd also said despite having a significant amount of fund balance increase over the years, it would cost the service significantly more money to run its own individual full-time service rather than a contract with CRH.

Frandson is unsure how much the county will be contributing for the contract as they do not have an estimated budget at this time.

Frandson said that beyond the three-year contract they would need to look for additional funding in the future which may come through the county and city.

NEW LOCATION

The county along with the ambulance service and CRH are searching for a large enough building to house the ambulance service and Frandson said they are looking at several options west of the train tracks with a deal looming.

Frandson said that it would not be cost effective to remodel the former Kennedy Ace Rental building and some of the options they are looking at would potentially need to be rezoned for the building to house paramedics.

Frandson said that he understands that concerns may be raised regarding the ambulance service potentially being placed on the west side of the train tracks leading to delays responding to emergency calls but to his understanding there have been few delays in 20 years due to passing trains.

When a building is found the county will lease the building to the ambulance service which will then subsequently sublease the service to CRH.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In last week’s edition of the Northern Wyoming News it was said that CRH had approached WACS and the county to take over the service, when in fact the ambulance service and county had approached CRH for relief in a time of need.

Sypherd also said that call volume did not necessarily increase last year, but the amount of time spent on each call significantly increased due to COVID-19.