East Bay Express
ALAMEDA, Calif. — On November 1, Alameda County will have new ambulance service for the first time in nearly two decades. Paramedics Plus is taking over for longtime provider American Medical Response after winning a lucrative county contract in a heated bidding war. But the ambulance giant AMR is not giving up. It has taken its fight to court, claiming that its competitor illegally priced its bid far below what it will cost to provide service here in an effort to push AMR out of the Bay Area.
Although both sides are remaining tight-lipped while the lawsuit plays out in court, bid documents show that Paramedics Plus won the county contract after saying that its patient charges were going to be much lower than AMR’s. Paramedics Plus had projected its annual charges at $160.4 million compared with AMR’s $332.8 million.
AMR’s representatives have said that Paramedics Plus’ cost estimates are bogus. Prior to the lawsuit, company reps said that Paramedics Plus did not account for proposed changes in the county’s ambulance response time requirements and that those changes had translated into sharp but necessary increases in cost and service hours to meet demand. In a letter to county officials, AMR’s Alameda County chief, Mike Taigman, claimed that the health and safety of East Bay residents would be compromised as a result of the switch, and he said the county would “incur significant costs to salvage the system when it fails.”