By Robert Harding
The Citizen
AUBURN, N.Y. — An agreement will generate revenue for the city and provide Auburn Community Hospital with access to ambulance for interfacility transports.
The Auburn City Council will review the proposal at its meeting on Thursday. According to a background memo, the hospital will pay $500,000 in exchange for access to a city ambulance for emergency and non-emergency interfacility transports.
| MORE: EMS Treatment-in-place reimbursement without transport
If the council approves the resolution, the contract would begin July 1 and run through June 30, 2027 .
The text of the contract offers more details about why both sides sought this arrangement.
Auburn Community Hospital opened its cardiac catheterization lab in January. According to the agreement with the city, the hospital is required to provide interfacility transports for patients who need “a higher level of care for services including, but not limited to, patients that present to the ACH Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory for medical care.”
Auburn City Ambulance, a city-run agency, will provide an advanced life support ambulance and a two-person crew for interfacility hospital transports. Auburn Community Hospital will have a licensed health care provider accompany the ambulance crews for transports that require blood products, intra-aortic balloon pumps “or other medications or technology outside the scope of practice of a New York state -certified paramedic.”
Auburn Community Hospital will have a designated interfacility transport coordinator who will contact Auburn City Ambulance to request an ambulance. The terms of the contract will require the ambulance to arrive at the hospital within 15 minutes of the phone call unless the hospital requests a later time or if a designated ambulance is already transporting another hospital patient.
The maximum one-way transport range established by the contract is 250 miles. For long-distance interfacility transports, the start times will be between 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 7 p.m. to midnight .
Auburn City Ambulance will have the right to suspend non-emergency transports due to inclement weather.
Patients who are transported to another facility will be billed by Auburn City Ambulance, according to the contract. An exception is for patients who are enrolled in Medicare Part A. In those cases, the hospital would pay for the transports.
The agreement will benefit both parties. As the hospital expands its services offerings, it needed this option in case patients require further treatment. For the city, it’s an additional revenue stream at a time when it must close a nearly $5 million deficit.
The revenue could also help the city prevent cuts to Auburn City Ambulance’s workforce. A revised budget proposal would eliminate seven full-time and 10 part-time positions from the ambulance agency. Auburn City Manager Jenny Haines told The Citizen that the city was working on contract opportunities that could “maintain some of the part-time positions and these full-time positions.”
The City Council will meet at 5 p.m. Thursday at Memorial City Hall . Other items on the agenda include public hearings on the proposed budget and a local law to override the city’s 4.72% property tax cap.
© 2026 The Citizen, Auburn, N.Y.
Visit www.auburnpub.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.