Dubois County Council meeting for November

Emergency Service’s financial woes

The Dubois County Council met for their final November meeting Monday afternoon and heard from Susan Henke, Director of Emergency Service with Memorial Hospital, about financial woes of the Dubois County EMS Department.

Henke reports that due to lower than expected emergency runs that revenues are down, bad debts are up and overtime forced by not having enough full-time Paramedics has put them at a deficit of $18,600 per quarter more than they estimated.

That means that the total amount of expenses for the Department for the fiscal year will be in the range of $875,000, as opposed to the $800,000 that the council estimated would be needed in the budget for the Department.

Henke says that they are doing the same work, but increases in expenses and the lack of higher revenues has created the deficit situation.

She also claims that federal mandates for trauma protocols require patients with certain injuries be flow via helicopter to the closest trauma center for treatment.

Those closest trauma centers are located in Evansville and Louisville and the use of helicopter services for transporting patients steals revenues away from the ambulance service. “July 1st of this past year there was a trauma protocol/triage law that went into effect that requires us to send patients that meet certain criteria to be transferred to a trauma center, and so, yes, that’s what made the difference.”

Henke also said that Medicare/Medicaid contractual allowances are not as great as they once were.

Henke reports that they have openings for three or four part-time paramedics at this time. Those openings are posted on the Memorial Hospital website.

She also says that they have six paramedics in orientation training who are not yet in those jobs. The total amount of EMTs in the county is 60 right now.[hr]

New councilmember attended

Also in attendance in the meeting last night was Nick Hostetter, incoming Council member as a result of winning one of the open seats in the November 6th election. Hostetter stated he was “just trying to get an early start and I’ve just been watching. I don’t there’s anything specific I plan on doing first couple of months or so but as I get the feel for the office I got some ideas I’d like to move forward with.”

Hostetter takes his place on the council on January 1st. He and his wife are owners of Azura Café in Jasper