NATCHEZ — Adams County Supervisors will soon determine which of three ambulance companies will be the county’s single provider for EMS.

Both American Medical Response and Metro Miss-Lou Ambulance Service — who both currently handle emergency calls on a rotational basis — as well as Rural Rapid Response have submitted proposals.

The supervisors have yet to set a date when that decision will occur, though board president Calvin Butler said that date would likely be set at Tuesday’s regular meeting and could even be as early as next week.

The proposals make similar promises, yet each offers subtle differences across aspects such as costs, response times and amount of ambulances to be deployed.

Here are highlights of the proposals, listed in alphabetical order:

American Medical Response

AMR’s proposal states that services would come at no cost to the city or county. The company would recoup all costs though “private insurance, memberships and/or other appropriate means of reimbursement.” The voluntary membership program would allow county permanent residents to offset “out-of-pocket costs” for services by paying an annual fee of approximately $50 per household.

This proposal specifies that three 24-hour ambulances would be deployed throughout the county, though AMR would increase the amount of vehicles in situations that call for additional resources or if call volumes routinely become higher than estimated.

Response times to calls within Natchez city limits, the proposal states, should not exceed 9 minutes and 59 seconds, while county calls were given a maximum response time of 19 minutes and 59 seconds. AMR pledged to perform within these parameters no less than 85 percent of the time.

Click here for a pdf of AMR’s proposal 

Metro Miss-Lou Ambulance Service

If chosen as the sole provider, Metro also promised to respond to city calls in 9 minutes and 59 seconds or less 85 percent of the time. For county calls they listed a response time of no more than 18 minutes and 59 seconds, pledging the same frequency of success as with city calls.

Metro’s proposal states that the amount of vehicles and staff members to meet those standards would depend on call volume of any given day, but it also says that four to five of the 10 total ambulances in the fleet would be on duty at any given time.

Like AMR, Metro’s services would also come at no cost to the city or county.

Click here for a link to Metro Miss-Lou Ambulance Service’s proposal

Rural Rapid Response

As the only service in the fold that does not currently serve Adams County for 911 calls — though it does answer to non-emergency calls — Rural Rapid Response would provide EMS at a cost to the county of $52,504.

Rural Rapid Response pitched response times of 12 minutes or less within city limits. Ambulances would respond to calls out in the county, the proposal states, in 12 minutes plus an additional two minutes for every mile outside of city limits. Unlike the two others, this proposal did not specify a percentage goal for meeting these standards.

The service would supply two year-round ambulances at minimum for emergency calls, with additional units available on an as needed basis for non-emergency calls.

Each of the companies’ proposals also contain letters of support from municipal agencies, various certificates showing good standing, and specific ways each plans to serve the community.

Click here for a pdf of Rural Rapid Response’s proposal