Sale of local ambulance service reflects state's EMS crisis, owner says

GRAND RAPIDS — After almost 50 years of local ownership, Meds-1 Ambulance Service in Grand Rapids announced it will sell to Brooklyn Center-based North Memorial Health.

Owners Jim and Suzanne Ducharme, who bought the company from the original owners in 2016, announced the sale Thursday, May 9. The sale is effective June 4.

North Memorial Health Ambulance Service is owned by the nonprofit North Memorial Medical Center, which operates two hospitals and dozens of clinics in the Twin Cities, plus ambulance and air care services across the state.

Kevin Lee — North Memorial’s emergency medical services relationship specialist — told the Itasca County Board at its Tuesday, May 14, meeting, that North Memorial is one the largest hospital-based ambulance services in the country.

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Grand Rapids is just the latest area added in Greater Minnesota. North Memorial Health already serves Brainerd, Aitkin and Park Rapids, and some smaller communities in between. Rob Almendinger, who oversees those service areas, will also manage Grand Rapids, though a local supervisor will handle the day-to-day.

Lee, who formerly managed the Brainerd region, said discussions with local law enforcement, the fire department and the hospital have gone well.

“We’ve heard nothing but positive feedback and support,” he told the Board.

Lee requested a letter of support from the County Board to share with the Minnesota Emergency Medical Services Regulatory Board at its Thursday, May 16, meeting when the it considers the license transfer from Meds-1 to North Memorial. Jim Ducharme said he’d received a letter of support from the city, and Lee said he’d received one from the Itasca County Sheriff’s Office. The County Board agreed to provide one as well.

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Lee said in other communities, North Memorial Health employees attend community events and work with Toward Zero Death groups.

“We won’t just be providing ambulance service,” he said. “We’ll truly be involved in the community.”

But Ducharme said in an interview after the County Board meeting that while North Memorial may continue to maintain a level of involvement, he’s not sure they’ll do things like donations to the high school marching band and tennis teams, like Meds-1 did.

“I feel, being a smaller mom-and-pop operation, we’re just more in tune and more in touch with what’s really going on in the community, versus a bigger entity,” he said.

Ducharme, who became an EMT with Meds-1 after an attempt to join the highly competitive St. Paul Fire Department fell through, said the decision to sell was a business one.

“Profit margins are down a lot and making it very difficult for the small mom-and-pop operations to stay in business,” he said.

If it weren’t for the numerous challenges they have and continue to face, he and his wife probably would have continued to run the business.

But Meds-1 was never really able to recover losses from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ducharme. They’re also dealing with issues facing EMS across the state. Federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates haven’t changed in 20 years and don’t even cover the cost of a run, he said. The state Legislature seems unlikely to pass all $120 million of EMS-requested stopgap aid, which even supporters have said would only be a Band-Aid for the industry.

“They like to call us essential, but not treat us essential,” Ducharme said. “ ... I actually find the support that we’ve gotten from our Legislature to be, I guess you could say, disrespectful to the industry.”

The sale to North Memorial will have positive impacts. Ducharme said the larger entity will be able to provide things he and his wife couldn’t: more resources; better pay, benefits and scheduling for employees and a unique ability to address staffing shortages — an industry-wide challenge — by pulling people from nearby service areas.

“North Memorial, with their size and their nonprofit status, they can find more funding and have more resources,” he said.

Ducharme is also excited for a chance to possibly get back to why he became an EMT and work directly with patients again.

“I really do want to get back on the rig,” he said. “I think it’d be a lot of fun. I miss those days.”