Change comes through action.
We each have a voice and combined we can make sure our desires for change are heard.
We each have a voice and combined we can make sure our desires for change are heard.
Tell Congress It's Time to Fix SSI Benefits
Paramedics, the front-line workforce upon which positive patient outcomes often depend, have been all but forgotten by our broken for-profit healthcare system. They are shockingly underpaid while working brutal schedules that put them at serious risk for mental and physical injury. Paramedics are 14 times more likely to be violently assaulted at work than firefighters, yet they make nowhere near the salary cops and firefighters make.
These front-line heroes are bearing the brunt of the pandemic as new variants rage across the country, and many can’t make ends meet. Average paramedic pay is $34,320, and some ambulance companies don’t even provide health insurance. That leads to high turnover and chronic short-staffing. For the paramedics that remain, that means more mandatory overtime, workplace injury, and burnout.
Due to a lack of funding, many parts of rural and suburban America like Montana, rely on voluntary services. Other regions depend on predatory for-profit companies that pay workers less than a living wage while charging patients exorbitant fees. In California, private-sector EMTs make 39% less than their public-sector counterparts.
Predatory practices don’t end there. Over half of EMS companies remain out of network for many insurance companies, leading to higher risks of large surprise bills for patients - and a marked increase in patients calling cabs or ride sharing instead of an ambulance in a medical emergency. In addition, EMS services were left out of the recent 'No Surprises Act' aimed at reducing surprise medical bills.
Increased funding to community EMS services could improve the lives of EMS workers—our frontline heroes—and stabilize the steadily rising costs to patients who need those services.
There are better paths forward by dismantling reimbursement economics, outlawing surprise billing for out-of-network ambulance rides, establishing a lead federal agency to oversee EMS providers, and officially labeling EMS as an essential service.
If you want to thank first-line workers for their hard work during the pandemic, clapping isn’t enough. What they really need is our support for measures that create change in their lives.
These front-line heroes are bearing the brunt of the pandemic as new variants rage across the country, and many can’t make ends meet. Average paramedic pay is $34,320, and some ambulance companies don’t even provide health insurance. That leads to high turnover and chronic short-staffing. For the paramedics that remain, that means more mandatory overtime, workplace injury, and burnout.
Due to a lack of funding, many parts of rural and suburban America like Montana, rely on voluntary services. Other regions depend on predatory for-profit companies that pay workers less than a living wage while charging patients exorbitant fees. In California, private-sector EMTs make 39% less than their public-sector counterparts.
Predatory practices don’t end there. Over half of EMS companies remain out of network for many insurance companies, leading to higher risks of large surprise bills for patients - and a marked increase in patients calling cabs or ride sharing instead of an ambulance in a medical emergency. In addition, EMS services were left out of the recent 'No Surprises Act' aimed at reducing surprise medical bills.
Increased funding to community EMS services could improve the lives of EMS workers—our frontline heroes—and stabilize the steadily rising costs to patients who need those services.
There are better paths forward by dismantling reimbursement economics, outlawing surprise billing for out-of-network ambulance rides, establishing a lead federal agency to oversee EMS providers, and officially labeling EMS as an essential service.
If you want to thank first-line workers for their hard work during the pandemic, clapping isn’t enough. What they really need is our support for measures that create change in their lives.
Send a letter to your Congressional Representative urging that EMTs are supported and that EMS are reigned in and made more equitable for all.