By Susan Danseyar
Journal Inquirer
STAFFORD, Conn. — Stafford residents who find themselves in need of advanced life support may receive an extra bill if the services are provided by neighboring Somers.
Because Somers no longer has a financial agreement with Stafford for ALS, patients in Stafford who are transported to a hospital by the Stafford Ambulance Association will pay both towns if a Somers paramedic — with the necessary ALS training and equipment — is riding in the ambulance.
ALS relies on paramedics, as well as a breadth of different medical supplies, including 60 different medications and medical equipment to address cardiac and respiratory problems, among other potential health emergencies. The supplies can include pediatric kits that have different equipment for children of different ages and sizes and equipment to allow responders to intubate patients or set up intravenous lines to deliver fluids or medication.
The two towns recently ended a five-year agreement whereby Stafford paid Somers a yearly fee for the times its personnel trained in ALS came to the town with the necessary accompanying equipment on a mutual aid call. Both towns said negotiations for a new agreement came to a halt for financial reasons.
Somers officials have long been discussing how to find an equitable financial arrangement with Stafford, saying it costs more money to provide ALS service to Stafford than the town gets paid. According to Somers First Selectman Timothy R.E. Keeney, Somers was losing $87,000 a year with the amount Stafford had been paying for about 350 ALS calls annually.
Stafford First Selectman William “Bill” Morrison recently said the towns had an agreement in place but couldn’t agree on a price moving forward. When the agreement ended this year and Somers wanted to negotiate a higher price, he said his town decided against it.
Somers works through Tolland County Mutual Aid, which provides 911 services to 17 towns encompassing 34 emergency service organizations within Tolland, Windham, and Hartford counties.
When Somers is called for mutual aid in Stafford, paramedics will still go to Stafford, provided there’s a paramedic on duty in Somers, Keeney said. The difference now, he said, is Somers directly bills Stafford patients for the ALS expertise and equipment in the ambulance. That could result in higher out-of-pocket expenses to the patient, depending on their insurance company’s agreed-upon rate.
Somers’ former Fire Chief John Roache developed an ALS program in 2019 “from the ground up,” Keeney said, making it a model for other communities.
Roache described the program as being able to “bring the emergency room into the field.”
Somers’ transition from a basic life support system to ALS took several years of paperwork, logistical planning, acquisition of supplies, and training to become a reality.
Keeney said that Somers’ ALS program “was so impressive that everyone wants to use it.”
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