New Leadership
For WRV Ambulance
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

The future of the White River Valley Ambulance is looking brighter—the result of 12 months of strict financial controls and a reorganized board with some new members who bring business experience to the table.

Tom Anderson, Brookfield’s new representative to the WRVA board and its acting president as of the last month, said this week that he is optimistic about the future of the organization, which serves its eight member towns.

The board and its new slate of officers, he said, is focused on improving communications with selectboards in the eight towns—"so there are no surprises"—and continuing efforts started one year ago to stabilize the service’s shaky finances.

The board also hopes to hire a new executive director as soon as possible, Anderson said. However, a search committee will take the time needed to find "the right person," Anderson stressed in an interview this week.

WRVA’s other, newly elected officers are: Vice-Chair Peter Sullivan of Barnard, a retired businessman; Treasurer Jon Hogdgon of Bethel, a small-business owner; and Secretary Joanne Mills of Stockbridge, of Ted Green Ford. Hogdgon has been Bethel’s representative to the WRVA board for many years; Sullivan and Mills, like Anderson, joined only this year.

Anderson this week gave kudos to longtime chair of the board, Jocelyn Stohl, and to Interim Administrator Pat Edwards, for their efforts over the past year, following the resignation of former administrator Amy Estey, to "salvage" the ambulance service from its financial and management problems.

"It was a sinking ship," said Anderson, who has spent some time studying WRVA records in recent months.

Stohl, who has stayed on the volunteer board as its Braintree representative, remains a vital part of the financial overhaul, Anderson said. She reported to the board earlier this week that outstanding debt, alarmingly high a year ago, had been whittled down to $1000. Cash flow, however, still remains "extremely tight," Anderson said.

Anderson conceded that WRVA had also been buffeted by communication problems in the past year.

Mending Fences

The WRVA board, he said, is acting promptly to "mend fences" with two important partners—the town of Randolph and Gifford Medical Center. Officers of the WRVA board have already met with Randolph officials and plan soon to meet with top executives at Gifford.

WRVA and Randolph have been in a running dispute over the town’s 2007 assessment: The selectboard budgeted to pay only $197,460 of the $250,000 it was assessed. Randolph was the only town in the consortium declining to pay the full assessment, which was up an alarming 45% over last year.

Anderson said WRVA board members and Randolph officials are talking about how to resolve this issue. Randolph’s representative to the WRVA board, Barbara Springer, is also attending these meetings.

Anderson said he does not know how the matter will be resolved, but noted that whatever amount is settled on ought to be "fair and equitable" to all the member towns.

"Obviously, we would like it to be the full amount," he said.

The long-term solution, Anderson added, is to make sure that annual increases in assessments are consistent. The WRVA board understands, he said, that wild fluctuations in assessments—which have varied from 0% to 45% in recent years—are a budgeting nightmare for selectboards.

The other relationship that needs mending is with Gifford Medical Center, which has historically had strong ties with WRVA. Gifford did not appoint a new representative to the WRVA board a few months ago, when the hospital’s former representative, Linda Minsinger, resigned, and that seat still remains vacant.

The theme in these conversations, Anderson said, is keeping a focus on the future, and "not delving into the past too much."

To make sure that these problems don’t reoccur, all WRVA board members have made a commitment to keep their respective selectboards better informed.

Financial Reforms

According to Anderson, throughout last year’s problems, everyone did agree on one thing—that WRVA provides a top quality service. Anderson, whose background includes piloting an air ambulance for four years, said he is personally convinced that WRVA has "the best personnel around."

The board’s job is to support that service and an essential part of that, Anderson indicated, is to improve WRVA’s finances. A new Internet-based billing system, as opposed to a mailed one, he noted, has dramatically reduced the turnaround time for accounts receivable.

The board is researching outside revenue sources, including grants and contracts for ambulance services at events. Anderson noted that WRVA’s annual contract for providing stand-by service at a Woodstock horse show has been a profitable venture.

However, Anderson cautioned that, so far as finances go, "The nature of the business is tough."

"The way to make a little bit of money in the ambulance business," he joked, "is to start off with a lot of money."

The problems—many of which affect the health care industry as a whole—include reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid that cover only 40% of "true costs," Anderson said.

Another issue is private-pay patients who "don’t or can’t" pay their ambulance bills. And a growing problem—tied in part to the advent of cell phones and safer cars—are the frequent "no-transport" calls. An ambulance and crew scrambles out in response to a 911 call reporting an accident, and arrives to find no one injured, and sometimes, no vehicle. That means no one to bill.

Increases Likely

Although the ambulance service is straightening up its financial house, future increases in annual assessments to the towns are inevitable, and will probably fall in the 7-10% increase range, Anderson said. It costs money to run a good service, he noted, and two of the service’s ambulances—one with 150,000 miles and the other with 139,000—need to be replaced in the near future.

Anderson spoke easily about all of these issues, until he was tossed one that at least one town official has cited in the past year: Is WRVA too good? Is it a "Cadillac" service in a Ford kind of neighborhood?

"I don’t know how to answer that," Anderson said after a pause. "This is an urgent business. I’ve seen ‘non Cadillac’ service," he added, "and it’s nothing you want."

"I was a professional pilot for 25 years," he continued. "Would you want to get in a plane with a pilot who was just okay? If you were building something, would you want an architect who almost graduated from architecture school?

"This is an immediate effect," he said of emergency services. "If there is a horrible car accident, or a terrible illness, and it’s a member of your family or somebody you know and care about—you want the best people responding at this crucial time."

Anderson, who owns a consulting business, said that before he agreed to join the WRVA board, he took some time to investigate the operation and its recent history.

What he found, he said, was a service described universally by others as "absolutely fantastic."

For towns, an ambulance service is also a vital one, he said, and setting one up from scratch would cost $1 million.

Anderson said he came to the conclusion that WRVA "was sound—it was something worth salvaging."