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Multnomah County announced this afternoon it would fine its ambulance contractor, American Medical Response, more than a half-million dollars for failing to respond on time to emergencies, fulfilling a promise it made earlier this summer to do so.
The $513,650 fine is for AMR failing to meet its obligations in August, when its ambulances arrived late to 14% of calls, the county says.
“AMR has the power and responsibility to fix these unacceptable response times,” Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement, noting that the firm could always subcontract with other companies to fulfill its obligations in Multnomah County.
AMR recently expanded its services to Washington County, where it’s been experiencing similar staffing issues.
The county hasn’t always been so willing to blame AMR. A top county EMR operations manager, Aaron Monig, told WW earlier this year that the challenges AMR faces—a pandemic and subsequent nationwide paramedic shortage—were “not really within AMR’s control.” Monig has claimed that fining AMR could “financially destabilize” the company, and that the costs could be passed along to patients. (A private equity firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., purchased AMR for $2.4 billion in 2018; the company now carries enormous debt.)
In its statement, the county says that “all proceeds from the fines must go into system improvement,” and that the county’s health department will consider various ways of spending the cash, from new paramedic training initiatives to public service announcements asking the community to refrain from calling 911 in non-emergencies.