Earlier this year, a proposal began to take shape that would have created a brand-new local emergency medical services agency (LEMSA) dedicated solely to Placer County.
While that may sound procedural, it would have been anything but. In fact, this proposal would have resulted in hospital designation and certification fees being used to establish and sustain a new layer of government that would duplicate oversight of the county’s emergency ambulance system, which, for years, has been competently overseen by the Sierra-Sacramento Valley Emergency Medical Services Agency.
When Hospital Council learned of the Placer County proposal earlier this year, we recognized it wasn’t a technical governance question — it was a hospital financing question with long-term consequences. We worked closely with impacted hospitals to engage county and city leaders, LEMSA leadership, and other stakeholders to quantify the impact and propose alternatives.
As a result of that collaboration, the proposal has been discarded. Instead, the Sierra-Sacramento Valley Emergency Medical Services Agency has released a Request for Proposal to select an exclusive emergency ambulance operator for Placer County Zone 3 covering Auburn, Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, and surrounding communities.
This means no duplicative oversight, no new designation or certification fees, and no additional regulations. Most importantly, Placer County residents are assured they will continue to have access to lifesaving emergency care.
This work is a case study in the value that Hospital Council brings to its members. Hospitals face extraordinary change from every level of government, often following the same risk pattern we saw in Placer County: a proposal that sounds narrow but quietly shifts cost or authority onto hospitals in ways that are difficult to reverse once enacted. Our job is to see those patterns early, convene the right partners, and identify alternatives that meet public needs without adding permanent cost or complexity to the health care system.
That is what we did in Placer County. It is what we will continue to do throughout the entire Hospital Council service area.