DOBSON — In an effort to reduce the workload on paramedics, county officials have approved a franchise to a private ambulance service from Yadkin County.
Cape Fear Regional Transport, which operates Miller Non-Emergency Ambulance Service, was awarded the franchise to drive non-critical patients within the county.
The Surry County EMS will still respond to all 911 calls as usual and will still handle transport of patients who are in critical condition — such as when a patient needs to be transferred from Northern Regional Hospital to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
The change will not cost taxpayers any more money. The county isn’t paying Cape Fear to provide the service; the company will bill the patient the same way the county would. It will also file paperwork with the patient’s insurance/Medicare/Medicaid coverage.
Medicaid, for example, already has set limits on how much it will pay for something like convalescent transport, noted County Manager Chris Knopf. The rate schedule will be similar to what the county has been charging as a term of the franchise agreement.
All of this came out of talks that began more than a year ago between county staff and the Surry County Board of Commissioners working on the annual budget, according to Knopf.
The county wants to retain good employees in the central office, sheriff’s office and EMS, and that means looking at ways to be competitive with the surrounding counties and bigger cities.
First off, Knopf explained, the state doesn’t require counties to provide emergency services, and in fact there are 15 of the 100 counties across the state that don’t have an EMS.
Surry not only has an EMS, but its crew members have received state honors and won awards, such as 2009 and 2010 when Roger Horton and Barry McMillian won first place in back-to-back years in the state’s annual paramedic competition. Jose Butron and Josh LeCrone won first place in 2016 over Horton and McMillian.
“They work hard to be the best they can be at what they do,” Shelton said after the 2016 title.
Because these men and women train hard and have so much knowledge, it is overkill to have them running simple taxi services, like taking a patient from a nursing home to a dialysis appointment.
The county brought in part-time workers to handle some of these calls, but soon it became obvious this wasn’t enough as the advanced life support crews had to make trips, too, noted Shelton.
Then it became a topic at budget workshops: Should the county hire more part-time help? Should it move to full-time transport help? How can Surry stay competitive with its neighbors in retaining good paramedics?
Mountain Valley Hospice already asked for its own franchise last year so it could operate one ambulance itself to transport patients. Was this the way to go, bringing in outside transport help?
At the board meeting this week, Cape Fear President Gary Miller answered questions from the commissioners.
Cape Fear/Miller started at the coast in 2006 and now is based in Yadkinville. Miller Non-Emergency Service started in February 2016.
Miller said he would have transport vehicles based in Surry County for quicker response time as well as one ALS truck to provide advanced life support if needed.
Where would the trucks be housed, asked Commissioner Van Tucker.
He would be willing to pay a lease to house on a county site if required by the board, Shelton responded.
The contract would be for one year and be up for an annual renewal so that the board can reconsider it if necessary, noted Tucker.
After further discussion by the board, the commissioners voted to approve the franchise for one year.
Property offer
In other county business, Don Mitchell, county facilities director, told the board about an offer on a piece of property close to the granite quarry.
Two weeks earlier, Mitchell presented bids for four properties that were all under the tax value — but all came with issues such as bad grading or trash buried on the site.
In this case, Mitchell said the property is a mess and needs work, but he didn’t mention any fatal flaws like last meeting.
The county recently foreclosed on a property at 732 E. Pine St., he said. There have been a lot of complaints on this site across the road from the quarry (just west of the entrance), said Mitchell, but the county didn’t own the land then.
The tax value of the lot is $18,680, and the offer received was for $7,000, he said.
Is this bidder a neighbor, asked Chairman Larry Johnson. That can mean a lot.
Yes, answered Mitchell.
On a past case where the county was hunting for higher bids, the staff posted a For Sale sign on the property to draw interest from passersby, pointed out Tucker. Perhaps something like that might draw more attention than simply advertising for upset bids.
Commissioner Bill Goins made the motion to surplus the property so that it can be put up for sale, and the board approved. Then he made a motion to accept the bid, pending the upset bid process, and have the buyer pay the cost of advertising the property for sale. The board approved that as well.
The county manager said he would contact the other adjacent property owners to tell them of the accepted bid so that they might make an upset offer.
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