NATCHEZ — Three companies will make a pitch today aiming to become the sole provider of emergency ambulance services in Adams County.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors will meet at 11 a.m. in the supervisors’ offices on State Street to hear proposals from American Medical Response, Metro Miss-Lou and Rapid Rural Response.

The board received written proposals from the company Monday, and Board President Mike Lazarus said today’s meeting will allow company officials to make their pitches in person.

Discussions about switching to a single emergency ambulance provider most recently began in October, when supervisors were alerted to a resident having to wait 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive.

County officials have said Adams County is the only county in Mississippi without single-provider ambulance service.

In addition to the proposal submissions the county requested, the board sent approximately a dozen questions to the companies Tuesday.

Question topics include training, how response times are measured, age of emergency vehicles, community outreach, advanced life support (ALS) systems and other aspects of their services.

In the written proposals, AMR proposes a response time of less than 10 minutes for calls inside the city limits. Outside the city limits, response time would be less than 20 minutes.

In its proposal, AMR proposes to provide monthly response time reports to the county and city.

Metro Miss-Lou proposes an 11-minute response time within the city limits on 90 percent of calls for service and 16-minute response time to areas outside the city limits on 90 percent of calls for service.

Rural Rapid Response proposes a 12-minute response time for calls inside the city limits and 12 minutes outside the city limits plus two minutes per mile from the city limits.

Response time is a top priority in the supervisors’ evaluation of the proposals, Supervisor David Carter said.

“Response times are important and so is the number of ambulances, what type of advanced life-support systems and critical-care systems (the companies) have,” Carter said. “That way they can get to the house and treat (patients) and not just stabilize them and take them to the hospital.”

Board President Mike Lazarus said the board would likely not take action at today’s meeting.

“This is something we need to take our time on and get it right,” he said. “We just want to make sure the people of Adams County are getting the best care.”