Nicholas Walczak – WiscNews
Jan. 9—The Portage Fire Department’s new emergency medical service has handled more than 65 calls in its first week, with 14 calls specifically requesting an EMS response on its first day.
The ambulance service that began Jan. 1 is a big change from what the department has traditionally offered. For years, Portage contracted with an ambulance service to provide EMS coverage to the city.
Portage Fire Chief Troy Haase said that though the cost is a bit higher to run its own EMS, the department now has control of the service and can provide high quality care with more highly trained personnel, while also reducing response times with an additional ambulance.
“We are going to provide a better quality of care. But the third ambulance makes a big difference too,” Haase said. “And we’ve already seen the effects that it has with having two ambulances out at the same time on the first day of the year.”
“That’s really what the whole pitch was when I did the referendum,” he said, adding, “people won’t be waiting 20 minutes for an ambulance anymore.”
Portage voters passed a referendum last February allowing the Fire Department to take control of the city’s EMS services instead of contracting with a provider.
Nearly 72% of voters cast ballots in favor of the referendum, which increased the city’s tax levy in 2024 and each year going forward by about $1.5 million.
The increase means the owner of a home with an assessed value of $100,000 will pay an extra $152 annually, or about $3 per week. The owner of a $200,000 house will pay an extra $304 annually, or about $6 per week.
The money funded 14 additional public safety personnel, including cross-trained firefighters, EMTs and paramedics. It also covered the cost of education and training for those who were not already cross-trained, three new ambulances and the state-required equipment, and remodeling of the fire station to accommodate the increased staffing and new EMS capabilities.
The fire department went from a staff of about 14 paid-on-call firefighters and EMTs, with seven full-time firefighters and administrative staff members, to 21 full-time cross trained firefighters who are either paramedics or EMTs who are working to become paramedics, with still about 14 paid-on-call firefighters, who will respond to calls, often from home or work when they get paged, Haase said.
Six cross-trained firefighters and paramedics or EMTs who are still working towards their paramedic certification will be at the fire department every shift, Haase said.
Matt Graf, of Caledonia, is one of the full-time firefighters and paramedics who will be responding to calls throughout the day.
Graf has more than 29 years of experience working in emergency services, he said. Up until about a year and a half ago, he had been working part-time for Aspirus Hospital’s EMS service in Portage, but he made the jump to the Fire Department’s service partially because he wants to be able to provide care to people at the hyperlocal level, Graf said.
He also started as a paid-on-call firefighter in Portage a year and half ago because he knew that once the department had its own EMS service, he would likely have a full-time position, Graf said.
“I’ve never been somewhere with this many new toys. It’s amazing,” Graf said of the Fire Department’s new equipment and vehicles. “It’s a once in a lifetime chance to run calls somewhere that you have all, from the ground up, new stuff. We are able to give such superior care, and this is going to make a big difference for everyone.”
Under the city’s 1999 contract with Divine Savior Hospital, its ambulance service would send an invoice for operating deficits, which for decades the city did not receive a bill for, officials said. Aspirus bought the hospital in 2019 and took over the EMS contract, sending the city its first hefty bill in 2022, which Portage officials declined to pay, saying Aspirus did not meet certain notification requirements for the invoice. Haase has said Aspirus charged the city about $720,000 per year for the service.
Benefits
Haase said having full-time staff members on every shift will decrease the Fire Department’s turnout time — the time it takes for responders to get fully equipped and out the door from the moment a call comes in — to about two minutes, an improvement from about five minutes when the department had mostly paid-on-call firefighters responding to emergency calls a few weeks ago.
“The benefit is, of course, that we have our three new ambulances and 14 new paramedics and firefighters,” Haase said. “And since we have a third more people, we are going to be at the fire scene faster. And not just EMS stuff, we are going to be at the fire scene faster because we have staff here, so that reduces response time for our fire stuff, as well.”
After care is given, the EMS service will transport people to Aspirus Hospital in Portage unless the patients’ medical needs dictate they need to go somewhere else, Haase said. If a patient is transferred to Aspirus and needs to go to another hospital, Aspirus will do the transfer.
“We aren’t doing transfers unless it’s a serious emergency where no one else in the world could do it,” Haase said.
The Fire Department’s EMS service will cover the towns of Pacific, Lewiston, Caledonia and Fort Winnebago, which are part of Portage’s Fire District.
Parts of Wyocena and Marcellon also will be covered by the district after their former EMS provider, the Pardeeville District Ambulance Service, dissolved on Jan. 1 amid financial and legal troubles.
Haase said the EMS service will cost about $3 million a year to operate. Half that amount, $1.5 million, is being paid for through the city’s referendum. About another $1 million will be subsidized by people paying for their emergency service, and the last chunk will be paid for by the towns the service will cover.
Pacific, Lewiston, Caledonia and Fort Winnebago will each will pay $255,000 to the Fire Department for coverage, and Marcellon and Wyocena will pay about $50,000 each.
Portage residents and residents of the towns in the fire district will be charged $1,600 for basic life support service and up to $2,000 for advanced life support, while non-residents will be charged $1,800 for basic life support service and up to $2,200 for advanced life support.
The money will be paid to billing company EMS Management and Consultants, which has fulfilled different levels of EMS management needs to more than 1,000 municipalities across the country over the past 20 years.
Ambulance services around the state hire EMS management companies to maximize revenue with strict adherence to regulatory compliance and risk mitigation, Haase said. Many of the companies establish written billing collection policies, review contracts with payers and facilities, and more.
And although the consultant has a slightly higher fee than others that were looked at, Haase said, they “outscored” the other companies in qualifications and experience. The company also has a positive reputation and some of the highest recovery rates throughout the state, he said.
Hard work
The new EMS service is already making sense to Haase, as all three of its ambulances have been dispatched at once on multiple occasions.
In each of those cases, Haase called a paramedic in to work overtime, just in case a fourth call came in, he said. The paramedic has access to an EMT truck that could get them to a scene to begin preliminary care while waiting for an ambulance.
Haase said another benefit of the change is that if people have any problems with the service, they can go to city hall to speak their minds.
“If you have a problem, you can now come to the council chambers to voice your opinions,” Haase said. “And now people have control, because they can talk to their council person, the mayor, or whoever and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t what we bargained for,’ and then there can be someone held accountable.”
Haase said the Fire Department expects to receive about 3,000 calls this year between fire and EMS services.
“I’ve told every one of the people working here now that we are going to treat our patients like they’re their own mother, and if they can’t do that, then they’re working in the wrong place,” Haase said. “Because everybody is going to be treated equally and fairly and the way they should be treated.”
Cody Doucette, the department’s assistant chief who is also in charge of the EMS service, said getting the service up and running was a long process, but thanks to Haase, who worked about 1,000 hours off the clock in the past year to get the service ready, they have really hit the ground running.
“I don’t think anybody will understand the amount of time he put in to this,” Doucette said. “The extra hours he worked on nights and weekends made this possible. … It was a team effort, but (Haase) was really the driving force behind this, and that makes a difference. Because when you have someone who is willing to take the risk and commit the way he did, it really makes a difference in wanting to be here as part of the organization.”
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