Friendship Ambulance Providing Non-Emergency Services

The following article has contributions from Dave Zinni Director of Emergency Service/Chief of Friendship Hook Ladder and Hose Ambulance:

Friendship Ambulance has been providing Emergency Medical Services to the Royersford, Limerick, Spring City and Upper Providence area since 1948. In 2001, , Inc. started providing Advance Medical Services to it residents. As of April 20, 2012, in an effort to better serve the citizens and businesses, Friendship announced the addition of another ambulance to service the 911 response area and also has begun offering non-emergency transports.

Below is a brief list of services the department is offering:

• Basic Life Support Ambulance Service
• Advanced Life Support Ambulance Service 
• Critical Care & Specialty Ambulance Service 
• Event Medical Service: (Sporting, Concerts, School functions, Community functions)
• Scheduled, non-emergency medical transportation from home to a medical appointment and then home again for patients confined to bed.
• Scheduled/unscheduled nursing home or extended care facility to any hospital of the patient's choice provided no immediate life-threatening condition exist.
• Pre-hospital medical transport to any hospital of the patient's choice provided no immediate life-threatening condition exist.
• Post-hospital discharge transportation to nursing homes, extended care facilities or the patient's home as medically necessary.
• Inter-hospital transportation from one facility to another and back again to the original facility if necessary.

"We were a one-ambulance company at the time that was basically increasing call volume, but only handling it with one, so it was becoming more difficult," Zinni explained about the process of adding the second ambulance.

"To bring on a second truck wasn't financially feasible without doing something else. With the baby-boomers starting to retire and going forward, the need for non-emergency transports is going to increase. In essence, we were able to start initiating that care to go along with our regular services to come out with this endeavor."

The second crew has been out handling the new types of calls since the launch date. Zinni added that service is now faster as a result of the second ambulance, which was already in possession of the department, but was not being used.

"All of our crews are paid," said Zinni. "There's no volunteer crews. The fire department and the ambulance are separate. So, they're highly-trained individuals that obviously need to be compensated for what they do. To have that truck sitting there, it wasn't bringing any revenue in, so to do that service, we needed to increase revenue."

All claims, whether emergency or non-emergency are handled through insurance companies (at different rates) as normal. Zinni said local community events, such as , are not charged.

"Right now it's there for the people," Zinni included. "If people have a true emergency, it's better to dial 9-1-1 and call for an ambulance. Pre-hospital medicine is so advanced now that the care can be initiated right there instead of you driving in a car and waiting at red lights. Lives are being saved now because of paramedicine today."

For non-emergency services, residents can call: 484-369-8175.