NORWICH – Cooperstown Medical Transport Inc. was unanimously approved Thursday to expand its private ambulance coverage into Chenango County, owner Margaret E. McGown confirmed.
The Susquehanna Regional EMS Council in Binghamton, which oversees EMS squads in Broome, Chenango and Tioga counties, voted 25-0 in favor of granting CMT what’s called a “Certificate of Need” (CON). The certificate will allow the company to operate ambulances locally full-time.
“We are approved,” said Margaret McGown, CMT’s Chief Financial Officer. “Now we can focus on getting everything ready so we can be going twenty-four seven.”
The company plans to begin operating one 24-hour, seven day-a-week ambulance out of Norwich within the next week. McGown said it’s likely a second 16-hour ambulance will be added at a later date. If needed, it also has ambulances in Oneonta and Sidney that will be available for calls in the county.
As a formality, the state Health Department still has to sign-off on the regional council’s ruling. Barring any appeals, that should happen within the next 30 days.
“I don’t foresee that happening,” McGown said, referring to an appeal. “I haven’t heard anything but encouragement.”
The company was issued an emergency CON in November to temporarily cover Chenango after Superior Ambulance stopped taking calls in the area, citing a lack of profitable business. Since then it has taken around 165 calls in Superior’s absence.
“It’s a good thing,” said County Fire Coordinator Matt Beckwith on CMT’s approval Friday. “They’ve been here doing what they can already. Now that it’s permanent, we can start using them more.”
CMT was started in 1980 and holds CONs for Delaware and Otsego counties, where combined it handles around 4,000 emergency and transport calls annually.
The company is renting Superior’s old station on East River Road in Woods Corners and is currently working out a deal to purchase the site. Company headquarters are in Davenport, near Oneonta.
McGown said her next move will be to meet with County Fire Coordinator Matt Beckwith to work out dispatch protocol. The county dispatch essentially dictates what and how many 911 calls CMT gets, McGown said, and that weighs heavily on the success or failure of a private ambulance.
“We need to work out how we can effectively and directly dispatch them,” said Beckwith. “Now that things are finalized, we can work out some of those logistical details.”
McGown also plans to meet with volunteer squads and town leaders to find out if and how they want CMT to be a mutual aid or primary EMS provider.
“We’ll be out talking to different squads to see what we can do,” she said.
So far, CMT has struck no deals for coverage contracts with any towns or fire districts, said McGown.
Superior stopped running ambulances in Chenango County in Oct. 25, citing a lack of profitable calls. Prior to leaving, it had covered – both contractually and as needed under mutual aid – around 2,000 ambulance calls per year; the majority of those were in outlying volunteer fire districts that currently lack available paramedics and EMS coverage, like New Berlin, Pharsalia, McDonough and Smyrna.
Because of a lack of readily available volunteer EMS squads volunteer EMS squads in some parts of the county, the loss of the Superior put a greater strain on departments like the City of Norwich, Oxford and Greene, to handle an excess of calls outside their coverage areas.