Category Archives: Paramedics Plus

UPDATE: A press release, well isn’t that special.

Jill wrote such a sweet letter today telling us about an ordinance that was already passed weeks ago by the city council instead of talking about the real elephant in the room, the musical emergency codes of Paramedics Plus.

Public health policy is a collaborative effort. It combines the efforts of leaders charged with, and invested in, improving the health of our city, public health experts who are responsible for making effective policy recommendations, as well as advocates and concerned residents who want a healthy community and a better future for those who live, work and play in Sioux Falls.

Oh, really Jill? If you were so CONCERNED about the health and well being of our community, you would make sure ambulances show up in a timely manner.

I encourage the citizens to call these fine folks and ask them why the code for Level Zero got changed to a 980.

Public Health Director • Jill M. Franken, 367-8761

Assistant Director of Public Health • Alicia Collura, 367-8009

Emergency Medical Quality Assurance Coordinator • (REMSA) Julie Charbonneau, 367-8763

EMS Medical Director • Jeff Luther, M.D., 271-9000

Tonight on Stormland-TV, Investikeneke Angela is doing a story about the games PP has been playing since they implemented their ‘secret’ pilot program to help correct level zeros.

Teasers are HERE & HERE. UPDATE: Another story

The biggest concern is that PP has created fake mutual aid ambulances so that they still get the call and avoid zero level;

We’ve uncovered some of those late calls when no ambulance was available. But dispatchers no longer call it a Level Zero. Instead, it sounds something like this:

“Priority one for 980. Be advised that 980 is still on the call, 962 is at Sanford and will be clearing shortly to be enroute.”So while 980 sounds like an ambulance, it’s not, causing some to question is there is a “phantom ambulance” in Sioux Falls.

I was first told about this about a month ago (apparently the person who tipped me off went to Angela to). As I was asking questions about this and listening to different radio traffic, from talking to other ambulance service EMTs and providers in the region, one word kept coming up while describing PP’s new pilot program, “Corrupt”. And it wasn’t only competition that was saying this, one of their employees described the operations of PP as ‘F*cked’.

So how does this work if this is what they are truly doing?

It’s actually quite simple. In order to avoid a ‘level zero’ as an ambulance provider you have to make sure you have mutual aid in route to an emergency scene if all your ambulances are busy. Since PP has the contract with the city to provide exclusive ambulance service in Sioux Falls, they must call in mutual aid if all of their ambulances are busy. And they are busy quite often, making transports between SF hospitals, which is guaranteed revenue and at a lower risk. So when this happens, the accusation is that instead of calling in actual mutual aid (Like Med Star) they call a phantom service called a ‘980 to 989’. 911 dispatch of course are saying it is NOT a fake ambulance but another name for a Level Zero – Well isn’t that comforting. So while this FAKE level zero is happening, PP can finish their transport without getting called out on a ‘level zero’ and once the transport is finished, they call off the 980 and respond to the call, restarting the clock all over again. By this time, it could be over 45 minutes before the ambulance arrives. Rumor has it that in some cases people waited so long, they just had a family member drive them to the hospital, others died waiting.

While all of this sounds pretty crazy, it’s not to hard to pull off. Our health director, Jill Franken and REMSA have been tight lipped about this secret pilot program, so we have NO idea WHAT they are doing to fix the level zero calls, they refused to talk to KELO.

It will be interesting to see what Angela has uncovered, but the evidence I have been shown isn’t flattering.

I found this part of Angela Keninvestigate’s Stormland TV story about Paramedics Plus interesting;

Paramedics Plus did put in its own dispatch system for Metro Communications called PULSE and two Metro Communications workers were flown to Tyler, Texas for training on the system. The City and Metro Communications tells KELOLAND News it does not know how much Paramedics Plus paid for the PULSE system that came at no expense to the City or Metro Communications.  Paramedics Plus will not tell us how much the PULSE system cost.

However, we did find in REMSA’s annual report to the City that the software system is valued at more than $150,000. 

At the time it got the City Contract, Paramedics Plus told the City it was making a $1.7 million dollar investment into the REMSA System in Sioux Falls. The U.S. Attorney in Texas who filed the suit says it’s against the law to pay kickbacks in order to gain access to Medicare and Medicaid funds.

Acting U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston says, “Kickback schemes are anti-competitive, undermine the integrity of our nation’s health care programs, and wrongly prioritize profits over patient care.”

When Paramedics Plus was being vetted by the city, we found several conflict of interests with PP and the advisory company hired to vet a new ambulance provider. Not sure what a bribe or kickback looks like, but I would think promising a $150K to $1.7 million dollar investment into the system a little murky.