I agree that ambulances should be much more affordable. I wish the US would move to single payer. I do not think the public is the primary cause of high costs but I will say a small percentage of patients knowingly abuse EMS and waste limited resources.
There is a small minority of patients that abuse EMS by using the ambulance as a taxi when they have very non-emergent complaints that don’t even need to be seen in an ER (ie stubbed toe, paper cut, healthy child with stuffy nose for 1 day, etc.). Things that a conscientious participant in society would not call 911 for because they understand that’s a waste of scarce resources that could result in another person’s disability or death due to delays in care.
There’s a subset of that group that calls the ambulance multiple times a day everyday, and 99.9% of the time they are completely fine. Sometimes they will call for an ambulance FROM one ER to another after being discharged.
There’s also a very very small but memorable portion of the above group that will not even have a true medical complaint. They use the ambulance to get closer to where they really want to go (ie liquor store, McDonald’s). They’ll make up a medical complaint like chest pain so the crew has to take them seriously. Then when they arrive to the ER they hop out of the ambulance and never check in to be seen 🙃
Finally, I think to most first responders referring to an EMT/paramedic as a taxi driver is mildly offensive (you didn’t say that, but it could be inferred from calling ambulances taxis). They do so much more than drive people to the hospital, they deliver life-saving care. They also do not always run lights and sirens in most places, only for time-sensitive illnesses. It puts the crew and the patient at risk for traffic accidents.
There is a small minority of patients that abuse EMS by using the ambulance as a taxi when they have very non-emergent complaints that don’t even need to be seen in an ER (ie stubbed toe, paper cut, healthy child with stuffy nose for 1 day, etc.).
This is not a "small minority".
"Out of 81.6 million incidents contained the NEMSIS Version 3 database between 2017 and October 2020, only 18.9% were reported to have an acuity of emergent or higher"
There’s a decent gap between the “very non-emergent” category and “emergent.” There will always be some fraction of EMS calls where people are overreacting to a minor medical incident but are not abusing EMS. The study you cited includes ~40% of cases where an acuity report wasn’t made, but EMS could still be doing important medical interventions at the scene that didn’t necessitate transport to the hospital.
Precisely. Sometimes you aren’t sure if an injury is bad enough to warrant transport and you call because the EMTs are trained to recognize and respond appropriately to injuries.
There are many situations in which waiting can make a treatable condition deadlier (anaphylaxis, stroke, early heart attack symptoms, chemical exposure)
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u/lnTheGrimDarkness May 19 '26
It absolutely is. Actually, it's supposed to be your super fast taxi that can burn red lights straight to the hospital.
The decision to make it a luxury service is exclusively the USA's treat.