Emergency Medical Services Transport Law Public Education Campaign

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

After 10 years of contentious debates, an Emergency Medical Services Transport Insurance Reimbursement (EMS) Law was enacted in Montgomery County. The law allows Montgomery County to seek reimbursement from insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid for ambulance transports and is expected to generate $18 million a year in new revenue. Opponents conducted aggressive, widespread, grassroots campaigns to defeat it. Unfortunately, these efforts confused County residents about the true nature of the law by calling it an “ambulance fee,” implying that if the law passed, residents would have to start paying for ambulance transports. To ensure that residents would never hesitate to call 911 in an emergency, elected leaders allocated $200,000 for a public education program when the law was enacted. The comprehensive education campaign was highly successful in allaying resident fears that they would be charged for ambulance transports. Calls for ambulance service in January 2012 versus January 2013, the first month the law was in effect, actually increased by more than 3.5 percent. In addition, only 181 calls about the EMS Law were received by the County’s centralized 311 phone system during November and December 2012 and January 2013 – the months during which the education campaign was conducted.