Ambulance

continued from page 13 the town’s former provider, the private nonprofit Rescue Inc., was the most economical choice for maintaining current local coverage.

The study determined that a proposed Brattleboro Fire Department takeover would increase costs and bolster the town’s understaffed system of crisis response. Brattleboro leaders still have not shared any of the facts or figures that caused them to drop Rescue Inc. But Tuesday’s selectboard agenda indicates they plan to reveal estimated start-up costs for a combined fire/EMS department that total $1.3 million to $1.9 million.

In comparison, Brattleboro had signed a $285,600 annual contract with Rescue Inc. before the selectboard dropped the nearly 60year agreement last year.

Nationally, ambulance operating costs jumped 22 percent between 2017 and 2020, according to a recent FAIR Health study of 36 billion claim records, while average Medicare reimbursement increased by just 5 percent.

“Years of inadequate reimbursement for services rendered, unreliable levels of local, state and federal support, and the pressure of the global pandemic have pushed our fragile system and those who serve our communities to the point of crisis,” the Vermont Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee wrote in a recent report to the state Legislature.

Of Vermont’s 28 cities and towns with 5,000 or more people, 13 run their own ambulances through their fire departments or separate municipal facilities. None report making a profit — taxpayers subsidizing as much as two-thirds of standalone EMS spending after insurance collection, according to a VTDigger survey.

“The department is concerned with our ability to meet the service demands of our community,” Locke wrote in South Burlington’s most recent annual report. “There does not appear to be any reduction of the medical call frequency on the horizon.”