Hospital board gives final OK to regional EMS deal

GILLETTE – The ambulance partnership between Campbell County Health and Sheridan Memorial Hospital was approved in Sheridan earlier this month. Last week, the hospital board gave the deal the final OK.
Trustees voted Thursday to form the joint company between the two health care entities, forming Wyoming Regional EMS, an emergency medical services partnership to provide ambulance services to the city of Sheridan and Sheridan County.
CCH began helping Sheridan Memorial Hospital provide facility-to-facility transfers in April and began staffing a full-time ambulance in Sheridan in June. The new partnership would have the two health care entities paired in the same joint-company to provide full emergency medical services throughout Sheridan, including response to 911 calls.
Prior to the vote from trustees, the plans for the joint company were in place but needed the hospital board’s final approval.
“This would be the final approval to do this,” said CCH CEO Matt Shahan before the board approval. “We have an agreement with Sheridan to manage the theoretical LLC. Until it’s approved, though, nothing can move forward.”
Wyoming Regional EMS will be equally funded by both CCH and Sheridan Memorial Hospital, while also maintaining a six-person board made of three members from each organization.
Each side has agreed to match dollar-for-dollar up to $750,000 for the startup costs, which are expected to be recouped through the life of the partnership.
The deal is for five years and starts at a rate of $276,000 the first year, with room to negotiate a change if deemed warranted once the first-year financials are known.
The full-service operation would include six ambulances and about 40 employees, including about 24 full-time workers and three ambulances in Sheridan staffed 24/7.
CCH will provide the EMS services and charge the joint company for those expenses. Whatever money is left over, or net-loss remains, will be shared between the two health care entities.
“Sheridan, when they approached us, the hospital, they were very clear that they did not expect Campbell County Health to shoulder the burden of operating and potentially taking any losses on the ambulance service in their community,” Shahan said.
Sheridan city and county will each contribute $100,000 each year to the joint business in return for guaranteed response times that are still being negotiated, said Tom Lubnau, hospital board attorney.
“It’s not without financial stake from both the City of Sheridan and Sheridan County to make this attractive to us,” he said.
With the hospital board approval, all of the agreements are now in place, except for the final agreement regarding guaranteed response times, for the additional grant money the city and county of Sheridan will commit.
“We’re down to that granularity,” Lubnau said. “All of the agreements with Sheridan Memorial are worked out. The LLC operating agreement is worked out, including what happens at the end, if this arrangement doesn’t work out.”
CCH expanded its EMS services into Weston County when it bought Newcastle Ambulance Service for $1.23 million last summer. The agreement with Sheridan further expands its operations in line with a regional approach to broadening its service area.
“We’re looking at a regionalization of EMS services and we’re going to be able to provide our neighbors,” said trustee Lisa Harry.
Regionalization efforts to share and maximize health care resources among communities is viewed as a potential aid to the rural health care struggles Wyoming hospitals face.
“Ambulance services by and far are volunteer based, and as we know in all aspects of rural communities, volunteerism is at an all-time low,” Shahan said. “We are incredibly fortunate here in Campbell County to have our ambulance service.”
The partnership with Sheridan opens the door for more partnerships with other communities and health care systems that could join the joint venture and share in ambulance services.
“We also think, and the documents are drafted, that this regionalization could expand to other counties in the region, but that’s a question for another day that you’ll have to decide another day,” Lubnau told the hospital board. “But the documents are drafted for that kind of expansion.”
 
This story was published on Sept. 27, 2022.