Henderson City Council approves new ambulance service

By Erin Dostal

Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.

The Henderson City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to grant RBR Management, LLC, a private ambulance company, a business license to operate in the city.

Dr. Richard Henderson, one of the founding members of the company and the medical director for the Henderson Fire Department, said he hopes RBR Management is open for business by May.

The council expressed hopes that the company will help alleviate long wait times for non-emergency patients who need to be transported between hospitals or from home.

Teressa Conley, chief operations officer for St. Rose Dominican Hospitals, Sienna, spoke on behalf of RBR Management, saying that the private ambulance company would fill a need within the community.

“We want to provide the highest quality of services for the patient that come to St. Rose. We need services that are timely and are safe,” she said. “We feel this service is necessary.”

Conley said it is not unusual for noncritical patients requiring transfer to wait between 80 and 90 minutes. During high-volume times of the year, such as winter flu season, waits can be four or more hours, she said.

Patients can be transferred between hospitals because of physician preferences or because they require a specific type of facility for treatment, Conley said.

Leslie Godfrey, a representative for American Medical Response, a national ambulance company, spoke against RBR Management.

She said because the fledgling business did not yet own any ambulances, and because “non-emergency” was not defined, the business license should not be granted.

“You don’t know what types of patients you’re putting into these vehicles,” Godfrey said.

Godfrey said that it would take two years before the company’s ambulances could certified by the Commission on the Accreditation of Ambulance Services.

But Henderson said not having the accreditation will not stop the company from meeting the standards established by the Health Department.

Robert Richardson and Brian Rogers, the other members of RBR Management, have been working in the ambulance business since 1989, when both were employees at Mercy Ambulance Service.

Both men are paramedics and former managers of ambulance companies. Today, they work for the Henderson Fire Department.

Councilman Steven D. Kirk said he thought that American Medical Response seemed less concerned with public safety and more concerned about keeping business competitors at bay.

Twenty-four months is the accepted length of time for an ambulance company to operate before becoming CAAS-certified, he said.

“I don’t think it’s the competitor’s place to comment on the qualifications here,” he said. “Just say, ‘We don’t want the competition.’”

Councilwoman Kathleen Boutin agreed, saying the added competition among ambulance providers should provide more free-market incentives to provide better services.

“It will absolutely improve the quality of transportation and medical services to all of our residents,” she said.