Public Safety committee discusses proposed state budget

Vicky Klukkert, The Daily Star, Oneonta, N.Y.
·3 min read

Feb. 5—Changing the definition of emergency medical service and making it an essential service counties must provide are part of Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposed 2025 budget.

These and more proposed changes were discussed at the Delaware County Public Safety committee meeting Monday. Margaret Wilson, deputy director and EMS coordinator Delaware County Emergency Services, read through Hochul's proposed budget and took out information that pertained to emergency services, Emergency Services Director Steve Hood said.

If approved, the budget would expand the definition of EMS to "a coordinated system of healthcare delivery that responds to the needs of sick and injured individuals, by providing: essential emergency, non-emergency, specialty need or public event medical care; community education and prevention programs; ground and air ambulance services; emergency medical dispatch; training for emergency medical services practitioners, medical first response; mobile trauma care systems; mass casualty management; and medical direction."

Hood said the proposed expanded definition has never been in place before.

The proposed budget would make medical emergency response and emergency medical dispatch an essential service, and would ensure every county in the state has the necessary resources, trained personnel, and operational capabilities to provide medical emergency response, Hood said. This will not apply to a county wholly contained within a city.

"Counties must establish an EMS plan that shows the medical readiness within the community that is approved the the Department of Health," Hood said. The county can work with local counties, towns, cities and villages and can establish a special tax district to fund the service.

Medical dispatchers in the county must be trained and certified through the Department of Health under the proposed budget.

The ambulance service could also provide telemedicine. The ambulance crew would hold a video conference with a physicians assistant, nurse practitioner or nurse to see if the patient should to go to the hospital or if a follow up with a doctor or a visit to a local urgent care facility is all that is needed. This would be like the ET3 program that was offered last year before funding ran out, Wilson said.

Andes Town Supervisor Wayland Gladstone asked if the county would be liable if a county-run ambulance had treated someone via telemedicine and then something happened to that person. "That's the point of having a physician," Hood said.

The budget also includes EMS licenses or credentials people could obtain.

Hood also outlined components of the Rescue EMS package of bills in the state Senate to help expand emergency services. These include:

—creating special taxing districts to fund EMS services;

—removing EMS services from the Real Property Tax Cap, which would allow local municipalities to expand services;

—authorizing reimbursement for treat in place and transportation to alternative destinations such as urgent care facilities by changing the Medicaid fee schedule;

—allowing volunteer fire and ambulance workers to claim both state income tax credit and the local tax credit;

—increasing the volunteer firefighters and ambulance workers personal income tax credit from $200 to $800;

—creating a methodology for ambulance reimbursement under Medicaid that more closely approximates the cost of providing the service.

Vicky Klukkert, staff writer, can be reached at vklukkert@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7221.