When you dial 911, you expect a fast response. Whether you need police, fire, or an ambulance, every minute counts when it comes to response time. In Stevens County, we have been fortunate to have a fast response during critical situations.
That response comes at a cost. For law enforcement, the county relies on the Stevens County Sheriff’s Office. This is a part of the County system and is sustained by funding from the county. Similarly, the fire department for the City of Morris, other county cities, and townships is sustained by the communities where they are located. However, the ambulance service has been a private business for 17 years and is now facing some tough decisions that could affect response time.
Randy Fischer purchased the ambulance service from the county in 2010. At that time, the county decided to sell the ambulance building and equipment. They asked for bids and received three: one from Ringdahl, Wickland and Fischer (RWF), one from North Memorial, and the last from Allina Health. The county commissioners decided to go with the local company of RWF. Fischer was an employee of Ringdahl and became the director of the ambulance service.
At that time, Josh Fischer was working full time and got back into Emergency work when they had the opportunity to purchase the service. Randy and Josh had both worked for SCAS when it was owned by the county. Randy was the director from 1978 to 2004 and Josh worked for SCAS from 1997 to 2004. Since then the ownership of the service is completely local between Randy and Josh. RWF paid the county $850,000 in 2010. The ambulance service then became a privately owned business.
Over the next several years, changes in government and insurance have made the ambulance service less sustainable. Josh Fischer, who is now the director, said that they have been keeping three of the four ambulances available for service 24-hours per day. EMTs are on-call during this time and ready to respond quickly. The cost to pay the on-call staff has been steadily increasing. Part of the time you can consider this as volunteer hours, and staff members have volunteered about 23,160 hours during the year. This translates to $694,800.
The cost to maintain the ambulances is also increasing. The newest ambulance is a 2020 Ford with 100,000 miles. The oldest is a 2015 Mercedes Sprinter with 136,000 miles. There has also been a need for an increase in staff due to more transfers and calls.
You would think that this increase would bring in more revenue, but in most cases it does not. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement is 30 cents on the dollar. This does not cover the expense to respond to a call. In 2025, Fischer billed Medicare/Medical Assistance $2.5 million and only received $1.2 million.
Private insurance is also seeing increasing deductibles, and since the ambulance is the first to arrive, they are the first to go under the deductible. There are also times when a person decides not to be transported after the call is made, resulting in no billing option for the call.
Fischer recently met with mayors, council members, and township board members. He also spoke to the County Commissioners. He outlined the challenges that the ambulance service is facing and asked if the entities would be willing to sign a contract for services to help defray some of the added expense. He is asking for a service fee to cover the areas required by the state.
Some of the responses he has received revolve around the fact that he is a private business. However, Fischer argues that it is a private business that people rely on. The best scenario would be for the county to agree to a contract, but if not, he will go to the towns and townships.
If Fischer has to cut back to only one or two ambulances, people may need to wait longer. When the ambulance is doing a transfer, a second ambulance may have to come from Glenwood, Graceville, Alexandria, or Willmar. This would be a significant wait time.
The ambulance service continues to rely on volunteer labor throughout the EMS system. “This is not expected of our law enforcement; we don’t expect that of our snowplow drivers, we don’t expect that of other healthcare workers. For a service that provides the public with a ‘healthcare safety net’,” Fischer stated, “continued reliance on the workers to subsidize the service is not sustainable and is putting the public at risk. We need adequate funding to pay our people, to keep our fleet of ambulances up to date, our equipment in good repair so that we can provide the best possible service to the people of Stevens County.”
Fischer is hoping he will not need to reduce the number of ambulances on call, but it is estimated that something will need to be done before the start of the next year. He has already made as many cuts as he can and delayed the purchase of equipment. He is looking for grants and other funding wherever possible. Fischer encourages people who are concerned about the possible loss of some of the ambulance service to talk to commissioners or other leaders to help them realize the needs.
