Public safety committee OKs $1,800 charge for each out-of-county ambulance call in 2025

Starting on Jan. 1, 2025, Oneida County will charge townships located outside of the county that are not already contracted for ambulance service $1,800 for each run.

 The Oneida County board’s public safety committee, after meeting in closed session on June 13, directed Oneida County Sheriff Grady Hartman “to work with towns currently not under contract for ambulance service outside Oneida County at a rate of $1,800 per service call.”

Hartman told The Lakeland Times Chief Deputy Terri Hook and Jacob Simpkins, the county’s emergency management director, visited towns last week to make them aware of the change. 

“We’ve been charging for ambulance intercepts ($400 for an Oneida County ambulance meeting another ambulance from a town on a call) and now we’re going to start charging if we actually go to these towns and take their calls,” he explained. “We have been doing some of that.”

Hartman said the county wouldn’t charge for something like a mass casualty event and there are other situations, such as contracts in place with towns such as Lac du Flambeau and Arbor Vitae, that would be exempt from the $1,800 per run charge from Oneida County. 

For example, if an Oneida County ambulance was dispatched to a town such as Manitowish Waters to tend to a patient and had to take that person to the hospital because the Manitowish Waters ambulance and crew was on another call, or otherwise unavailable, there would be an $1,800 charge. 

Hartman said the county hasn’t been charging for those types of calls but gets plenty of requests for things like lift assists.

“The last 12 months hasn’t been terrible but before that, it was getting a little on the ridiculous side,” he said, adding that towns in Forest County, as well as Mercer in Iron County, would be approached as well but that “it’s really a Vilas County thing.”

Regarding Manitowish Waters, which is in the process of establishing the Northwoods Emergency Medical services District (NEMSD) with the towns of Boulder Junction, Winchester and Presque Isle, Hartman said in theory, “they shouldn’t need us” once that four-town EMS district starts operations.

Manitowish Waters town chairman John Hanson agreed with Hartman, telling the Times with a director and assistant director now “on the payroll,” he anticipates the Northwoods Emergency Services District (NEMSD) to be up and running “before the end of this year.”

 Hartman said Oneida County is in the process of acquiring six new ambulances and Hook told the Times “those ambulances are expensive.”

“The price of having our personnel on those ambulances is expensive and so if they start going outside Oneida County, we’re going to have to start charging because we have to recoup some of that for the citizens, the taxpayers of Oneida County,” she explained.

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].