Experts say the new laws will strengthen emergency response across the state by funding more educational costs and increasing the payment EMS services get for treating but not transporting patients.
By Annie Pulley, THE BADGER PROJECT
Gov. Tony Evers just made proposed legislation designed to help local EMS – and therefore, the public – the law of the land. The move comes as EMS agencies across the state continue to feel the pressure from rising costs and an increasing number of 911 calls.
“Nobody should ever call for help in an emergency and have to wonder whether help is going to come,” Evers said in a news release. “We must continue to invest in and support Wisconsin’s EMS professionals.”
One provision requires the state’s technical college system to give grants to schools that offer EMS courses. It also provides for educational reimbursements to individual EMS students or the agencies that sponsor them.
“This is a huge step forward for emergency medical services,” wrote executive director of the Wisconsin EMS Association, Alan DeYoung, in a news release. The new law is “removing the financial barriers to entry into EMS and expanding the pipeline of professionals who want to advance their skills and knowledge.”
In another law, Evers signed off on an increase in the maximum reimbursement EMS agencies are allowed to receive when patients are treated but not transported. EMS agencies traditionally get most of their funding from calls involving patient transports and very little from non-transports. The same law removed a disincentive for areas that opt to form joint EMS or fire crews with neighboring communities.
The new legislation is a win for EMS and the communities they serve, DeYoung wrote.
Trouble in Wisconsin EMS industry
“In 10 years, I don’t know where the fire, police and EMS service is going to be.”
So says Christopher Garrison, Sun Prairie’s fire and EMS chief.
Fewer volunteers, more 911 calls and the rising costs of medical care are stressing EMS agencies statewide.
“It’s a vital service,” said Tyler Byrnes of the Wisconsin Policy Forum about EMS. “More people are trying to use it, and the revenue to pay for it is not growing quite as quickly.”
EMS activations in the U.S., which include 911 calls and events like scheduled ambulance transports, increased by about 25% between 2021 and 2023, according to data from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System.
Not addressing funding and staffing challenges may “soon have a real impact on public safety,” according to a report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum published in 2021. Recruitment, difficult for all departments, “is reaching a crisis point for many volunteer and combination departments.”
DeYoung, representing the Wisconsin EMS Association, has received reports of some EMS agencies in Wisconsin not responding to as many as 80% of their calls.
When an agency can’t respond, ambulances stationed farther away usually take the call. It stresses the system and can slow response times for everyone.
A lot of it has to do with volunteers, who have historically made up the bulk of EMS staffing. About 65% of Wisconsin EMS agencies, many of them rural, still employ volunteers, according to a report from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health.
Volunteers have subsidized the taxpayers for years, DeYoung said. But declining volunteer rates mean something has to give.
That probably means higher taxes to pay for professional EMS responders, or worse EMS service than you used to get, experts say.
The “biggest issue” is the availability of volunteer and part-time staff, Garrison said. It’s a generational difference, he continued. Younger generations simply place a higher premium on work-life balance and family.
The job is demanding, intense and the schooling required for paramedics is “ridiculous,” he continued. “We see death every day. It’s hard on people.”
Ideas exist to relieve some pressure.
Some of them include charging repeat 911 users a “utilization fee,” promoting EMS as a profitable career with benefits and paying volunteers.
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