Q: Is Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. a public agency?

Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation organized under the New York State Not-For-Profit Corporation Law and has been in existence for over 67 years. We are tax-exempt under Section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. This means that all of our revenue must be put back into the organizational budget. We are not a public agency.

Q: Is Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. a volunteer or a paid organization?

Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. is a volunteer agency, run by the general volunteer membership. To raise our level of services and improve response times, we supplement our volunteers with paid Paramedics and Emergency Medical Technicians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This has allowed our agency to continue providing un-paralleled pre-hospital emergency care while keeping our response times at a bare minimum.

Q: What kind of apparatus does Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. have?

Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. is equipped with four Advanced Life Support Ambulances and two first response vehicles.  It is imperative to have several vehicles in order to respond with, due to the frequency of multiple calls at the same time.

Q: What is the difference between a paramedic and an EMT?

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT’s) are trained to provide Basic Life Support (BLS), which includes basic first aid for illness and injury, oxygenation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), and basic airway management. Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. has both volunteer and paid EMTs.

Paramedics are trained to provide Advanced Life Support (ALS), which includes all BLS skills, plus advanced airway management protocols, interpretation of ECGs, and the administration of life-saving medications by injection or intravenous lines. Over 80% of our calls require Paramedic level care. Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. has both volunteer and paid Paramedics.

Q: If this is a non-profit corporation, why do you bill for your services?

There are many operating expenses related to running an ambulance service. The vehicles and building must be paid for and maintained, fuel must be purchased in large quantities, continuous medical education, and medical equipment and supplies must be paid for. As fuel prices increase, fuel and any petroleum-containing products (including medical supplies made from plastics) are becoming progressively more expensive. Each of these operating expenses is paid for with town contract money and donations.
Maintaining paid Paramedics, EMT’s and in-house billing staff while most volunteers are at work is also a very significant expense. Although we would like to operate based only on donations from the community, this is not even remotely possible. It is through prompt and efficient billing that Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. is able to generate revenue to pay for the paid employees of our agency.  In reality, this is the money that we work for, and we collect!  This is NOT taxpayer money.  The taxpayer money that is received from contracts with the Towns of Moreau and Northumberland and the Village of South Glens Falls is utilized for day-to-day expenditures (heating and lights, vehicle maintenance, mortgage, continuous medical education, Etc.).

Q: Do you receive money from the Town of Moreau, Town of Northumberland and the Village of South Glens Falls?

We do not receive any county or state funding. We also do not receive any funding from or through the fire departments. We do receive contractual money from each of these municipalities in order to pay for our day-to-day operating expenditures. This is estimated to be 30% of our operating budget. The bulk of our revenue has to come from revenue recovery (billing of patients or their insurance companies), however, this is specifically utilized for payroll expenses.  It should be noted that Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. has twenty-two paid Paramedics, twenty-five paid EMT’s, and two paid in-house billing specialists.  Our billing specialists are also trained ambulance billing coders.

Q: What happens to the contract money once Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. receives it from the town?

The Town of Moreau contractual money is received by the volunteer administration of the agency and deposited into a separate agency checking account.  The Town of Moreau gets a copy of all invoices paid from this account in order to substantiate where this contractual money has been spent.  This would not occur with a for-profit company.

Q: Do Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. employees work for the town?

No, employees work for the agency which, as per our contract, is an independent contractor to the town.  Our employees do not work directly for the town.  We retain our separate entity and identity and are not considered a division, department or agent of the town.

Q: If you did not have paid Paramedics and EMT’s, what would happen?

Not all ambulance services are staffed with Paramedics; all are staffed with EMT’s as per the New York State Department of Health Regulations.  Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. has been staffed with Advanced Life Support since 1988 and with Basic Life Support care since our incorporation in 1957.  It was in 2006 that Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. had only five practicing Advanced Life Support providers available to offer this advanced care on a 24/7 basis.  In 2006, the volunteer general membership decided that it was imperative to supplement our existing volunteer staff with paid Paramedics in order to continue with the un-paralleled advanced care that we provided (this was necessary in order to be compliant with our Regional and State guidelines).  It was in 2008, that the volunteer general membership felt it necessary to further supplement the existing EMT staff in order to provide adequate coverage, especially during daytime hours.  Our response times prior to supplementing our existing volunteer staff with paid providers often lagged.  Currently, each of our units arrives within minutes from the time the call is placed to the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Department 911 Center.  Clearly, the sooner a seriously ill or injured patient receives Advanced Life Support care, the better the outcome.

Q: Can you staff with volunteer paramedics?

A small number of our volunteer members are trained as Paramedics, but in order for our agency to be certified to provide Advanced Life Support services, we are required by the New York State Department of Health to have Advanced Life Support staffing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our volunteers generally work full-time and have families and other personal obligations. Many of our volunteers also serve in our local fire departments and/or in the National Guard or military reserves. It has become increasingly difficult in recent years to recruit and retain reliable volunteers. Volunteerism is a national crisis; it is not exclusive to the Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc.  Other small local ambulance services face similar challenges and sometimes are not able to complete a crew to get their ambulance to respond. This results in an ambulance having to be dispatched from a neighboring agency, which delays services. Our current volunteers, paid Paramedics and EMT’s enable us to generally avoid this situation to ensure that town residents receive Advanced Life Support Emergency Medical Services as quickly as possible.  Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. prides itself in the fact that less than 1% of its call volume is turned over to a neighboring agency because we are unavailable to respond.  This is not matched by any other local agency!

Q: How can I support the Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc.?

There are several ways to support the ambulance service. The community can and does generously support us through tax-deductible donations and many residents volunteer to serve. You can also support us by letting elected officials know how important you think we are to this community and how important you think the availability of prompt ambulance service is.  Let the town board know how important the continuation of emergency services is within our community! Your statement in support of that action would be extremely helpful.

Q: What is involved in being an ambulance volunteer?

Volunteers typically are on-call one twelve-hour shift per month (6AM to 6PM or 6PM to 6AM), an additional four-hour shift per month and also attend monthly general membership meetings and periodic training sessions in order to remain current with the trends in emergency medicine. The scheduling of volunteers is completed prior to the placement of paid employees on a given day.
Training to become a Paramedic involves obtaining a college degree and involves several hours of hands-on training both in-hospital and in the field.  Training to become an EMT is usually a 14-week class offered two or three nights per week. Training to become an Emergency Vehicle Operator (EVO) is on-the-job and the duration of training depends upon call volume and the progress shown by the EVO. Most longtime volunteers eventually serve in some office (e.g. Secretary, Treasurer, Board Member), which entails additional responsibilities. People who want to support us with their time, but do not want to ride on a crew are also welcome to donate services (e.g. fundraising, Etc.). Call our Executive Director Steven Van Guilder at (518) 791-2305 for more details.  Applications for membership can be found on our website.

Thank You from Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc.

The Members of the Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our neighbors and friends who continue to give so generously throughout the year.
In this fast paced, crazy world we live in, we thought it would be a wonderful gesture to send handwritten thank you notes to each and every one of you. Intelligence and common sense prevailed, and we realized the cost of mailing them could be better spent on maintaining our program with equipment upgrades and educational services.

We, as a community, are very fortunate to have the best pre-hospital care available, 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week. Moreau Emergency Squad, Inc. strives to deliver the highest standard in pre-hospital care through our dedicated volunteers and employees with the financial assistance of wonderful people like you.