Ambulance troubles persist across state

By Johnny Johnson

Published: March 14, 2008

OWASSO — As director of the Emergency Medical Services Division for the state Health Department, Shawn Rogers knows better than most how dire the ambulance coverage is in Oklahoma.

So when Rogers heard the news earlier this week that Mercy Regional Health Systems and its president, Clay Hobbs, are facing a 23-count federal criminal indictment and a federal lawsuit alleging massive fraud by the ambulance service, he became understandably nervous.

Mercy Regional Oklahoma covers areas including Fairfax and a "big chunk” of Osage County; Cleveland County; about a third of Lincoln County, including Stroud; and most of Craig County. If the company got in financial trouble, those areas might go unserved for an extended period.

By Thursday afternoon, however, after being reassured that Oklahoma services would not be affected, Rogers was feeling a little bit better.

"We were very concerned, so we called them,” he said. "But they are telling us there is not a problem, that it's a sister company and that they are financially solvent and not affiliated.”

Mercy Regional Oklahoma is an ambulance service owned by Centurion Health Systems and is based in Owasso.

Mercy Regional Health Systems is based in Benton, Ill.

Duke Dixon, chief operating officer for Mercy Regional Oklahoma, said he was more than ready to "clear up the confusion” around Mercy's EMS service in Oklahoma, and said the federal indictments and lawsuit will have no effect on Mercy's regional ambulance service in the Sooner State.

"These are two totally separate companies,” he said, "Legally, they even have different tax ID numbers.”

Part of the confusion is that Mercy Regional Oklahoma shares a linked Web site with the Mercy Regional Emergency Systems, and both companies employ Clay Hobbs, who is involved in the indictments and lawsuit.

The connection with Hobbs is one that Dixon said Centurion Health Systems will investigate on its own.

Rogers said he was relieved to know that Mercy isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future. But while he waits on a revised business plan demonstrating Mercy's financial independence from the Illinois company, emergency care throughout the state remains in a state of crisis.

"EMS providers are still closing right and left,” he said. "Right now we've got 10 areas where no one has stepped up.”

The ambulance services network is getting thinner and thinner, he said. Additionally, response times have been increasing significantly.

If a heart attack is called in from Clayton, he said, that heart patient may have to wait an hour to get to a hospital — 30 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and another 30 minutes to get to the hospital.

More than one-third of the state is supported by ambulance services that operate "in the red,” Rogers said.

Many of the rural providers don't receive enough Medicare reimbursement to cover their costs, and while many of them complete less than 1,000 runs per year, the communities they serve would be devastated if the services were discontinued, he said.

The good news, Rogers said, is that officials are starting to take notice. The state Board of Health passed a resolution last month calling on state lawmakers to take action.

Last year, Gov. Brad Henry formed a task force that came back with recommendations on how to fix EMS coverage.

And earlier this year, the governor included the ambulance service issue in his "state of the state” address, and asked for $2.2 million to help provide better emergency medical services for the state.

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