Central EMS Shuttles Emergencies for Fayetteville

Emergencies are commonplace for Washington Regional Medical Center, which had the busiest emergency room in the state in 2000. Fortunately, Fayetteville’s Central EMS is prepared for just such an emergency, or most of the 46,000-plus that WRMC faces annually.

Mary Macklin, director of the ER at WRMC, said her department has anywhere from 120 to 170 patients daily.

“We run neck and neck each year with Jefferson Memorial in Pine Bluff as the busiest,” Macklin said. “So, we have to work very closely with [Central EMS], and they have been excellent.”

Central is the only ambulance service in Washington County south of Springdale. Its 10-ambulance fleet (it also has two wheelchair vans) covers Fayetteville with two stations and one each in West Fork, Prairie Grove and Lincoln.

Central, which has been in operation since 1980, runs like a public utility in that it gets tax assistance. But administrator Tony Hickerson said Central wouln’t need as much tax assistance if the company didn’t have to compete for non-emergency transfers.

There are four other private fleets in Northwest Arkansas that do non-emergency transfers. When a patient does not have a preference on how to be transferred in that kind of situation, Central has to wait to be picked in a rotation with the other fleets.

“We’ve got no problems with just one police department in Fayetteville,” Hickerson said. “You don’t want two or three water companies digging pipes around your house.

“Somebody is going to pay for our paramedics sitting out here even if they’re not being used. Wouldn’t it make sense to use us?”

The Springdale Fire Department, which handles Springdale, Tontitown, Cave Springs and Knob Hill’s ambulance service, doesn’t do non-emergency transfers.

Central, a 501C3 non-profit company, pockets only about 30 cents only every dollar it receives, Hickerson said.

“Most of our money comes from patients’ fees,” he said. “The rest comes from commercial insurance.”

Central’s base rate is $432 for emergencies, and $312 for non-emergency transfers. And there is a $5 per mile charge. Other fees could be added if products such as oxygen tanks or cardiac monitors are used, or supplies are used that must be replaced.

Central — after mandatory writeoffs and bad debts — enjoyed a 7 percent increase in net income in 2000 after having a 2 percent increase in 1999 and 3 percent in 1998.

In 21 years, Central has had only three legal actions filed against it, and one of those was dropped. The other two are still pending and one of those is a wrongful termination suit.

Central also has a dispatching facility at its Fayetteville South School Avenue location where 17 rural fire departments are dispatched when 911 calls are transferred to Central.