L.A. Supervisors Pick 4 Ambulance Service Providers, Ending Monopoly

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday selected four ambulance companies to provide emergency services throughout the county, ending a politicized, two-year battle over the lucrative business.

To the end, ambulance behemoth American Medical Response, which currently has the contract to provide services in the vast majority of the county, fought to keep its near-monopoly.

But the five supervisors voted to accept a recommendation from the county’s Department of Health Services to split the 911 emergency response service contracts among American Medical Response and three other providers: Care Ambulance Service, Schaefer Ambulance Service and Westmed/McCormick Ambulance Service.

“Response times will be better,” emergency services director Carol Meyer told the board, defending the complex methods her department used to evaluate the bidders.

American Medical Response had refused to abide by the response-time standards called for in the new contracts.

Representative of the three other firms, who gained territory under the 10-year contracts, expressed satisfaction with the selection process.

Two dozen cities in the county operate their own ambulance services, but residents of county unincorporated areas, as well as 62 other cities, rely on the county’s contractors for emergency ambulance services. Every year, county-authorized ambulances take approximately 150,000 people to hospitals. The ambulance companies make money by charging patients or their insurance companies for the service; the county does not charge for the contracts, but the companies must absorb the costs of treating patients who can’t pay.

A representative from American Medical Response, which spent $120,000 on two firms to lobby the county last year, blasted the way the county chose the providers Tuesday. And representatives from several cities currently served by the company also urged the board to stick with American Medical Response.

But, after the county counsel told the supervisors the selection process was fair, the supervisors voted unanimously. The board also asked the companies to develop a mutual aid plan within 60 days.

Altogether, ambulance companies spent $491,000 on lobbying for the contract over the last two years, county records show.