Facing a looming deadline, a committee of DeKalb County commissioners recommended on Friday that American Medical Response's contract to provide emergency ambulance service should only be extended for another 12 months.
More than $2.26 million in penalties have been imposed on AMR during the past four years for failing to meet performance standards, DeKalb County Fire Chief Darnell Fullum told commissioners.
The company has faced criticism ever since it began its contract with DeKalb County in June 2013. The contract was amended in 2019 to include response times.
"AMR did not meet the performance measures that we had set out in our current contract," Fullum said. "We did assess penalties against AMR for not meeting those response times."
"They paid about $1.064 million for the penalties that were assessed for 2021 and 2022," he said. Another $1.2 million has been assessed for 2023 and the first nine months of this year. AMR's contract with the county expires at the end of this year.
Commissioner Michelle Long Spears noted that the fees levied against AMR have risen during the past four years, indicating that performance has not improved. She said there should be a "more aggressive penalty."
County administrators are proposing a $4.982 million, 1 1/2-year extension of the AMR contract that would allow longer response times for "immediate threat to life" cases such as major trauma or severe respiratory distress, which represent more than one-third of EMS calls. It would shorten the response time for the most urgent cases.
Fullum explained that fire department personnel often arrive before an ambulance. "In many of those cases, our unit is arriving first, is able to triage the patient," he said. "Maybe they [AMR] don't need to come as quickly for that call."
The recommendation regarding the AMR contract was made in a unanimous vote of the commission's Employee Relations & Public Safety Committee.
Commissioner Robert Patrick said discussion of the contract would continue at the full Board of Commissioners meeting next Tuesday, which is the last scheduled BOC meeting of the year.
