Ambulance working well within budget

Carla Goranson, Kimball County Ambulance Director and Kim Schildhauer presented the September and October financial and statistical reports to the Kimball County Board of Commissioners during their regular meeting on Nov. 15.

According to the financial report, over the past four months the ambulance has charged $167,809.28, with their expenditures for the same time frame reaching $99,614.09. However, as it often takes anywhere from three to five months to receive payment from insurance companies, they have only had deposits for $50,423.88 in the same time frame. Despite the delay in receivables, the ambulance is working well within their budget and the future is looking positive for the ambulance service, according to Director Goranson.

For some time now, the ambulance service has been using a computer program that gathers and reports trends in ambulance calls. Although it might be assumed that Kimball may have more of a certain type of calls due to our aging population, the statistical reports show a different story. According to Director Goranson, “The data comes back inconsistent. For every seven calls there will be seven totally different issues. It is impossible to point to either a specific type of call or even a specifically busy day or time in our area.” This means that the ambulance and crew must train for everything as nothing is consistent.

The county auditor recommended to the board that the ambulance service strike $144,555 of delinquent accounts from their receivables that were charged prior to 2011. Many if not all of those charges are in some form of collections. Although it was unanimously agreed by the board to strike the charges from receivables, if and when any payments from those long past charges were to be received, they would still be accepted.

In the past few months, crew members have had several new training opportunities. In late Oct. they received instruction on “donning and doffing” which teaches the process of putting on and taking off the protective gear required to care for extremely contagious circumstances such as an Ebola outbreak. Regional West has an ambulance set up to transport Ebola patients if the need ever arises.

Goranson attended a Rapid Means Assessment training provided by the Cheyenne and Scottsbluff Emergency Management Agencies and taught by the State Emergency Management staff. Training was on the process of what would happen following a man made or natural disaster focusing on prioritizing and starting the recovery after such disaster.

On Nov. 3, the Kimball County Ambulance provided “active shooter training,” which was funded by a grant from the State of Nebraska. Training was held at the Bushnell Fire Department with the Dix and Bushnell volunteer fire department and Kimball County Ambulance attending. New training protocols teach that ambulance and or EMT go in right behind law enforcement to start providing life saving support immediately.

Goranson reported that the new ambulance, which debuted at Farmer’s Day and was blessed on Oct. 12, now has 1,925 miles and that they have just been using it from transfers so that all crew members can get used to the new set up.