Who
- Santa Clara County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agency
- Santa Clara Board of Supervisors
- Santa Clara County Hospital
What
In late April, Santa Clara County EMS Agency Director Nick Clay met with county hospital representatives to discuss a proposed increase to EMS designation fees — a proposal driven in part by a drop in funding from EMS trust funds for the agency’s budget.
This funding covers approximately one-third of the EMS agency’s expenses — totaling approximately $3 million per year. Because this fund is not as strong as it once was, however, EMS agency staff members were asked to develop a new fee structure for 2025-26 that would fully cover the cost for providing emergency medical services to the community (making up a significant portion of the $3 million).
To that end, the EMS agency independently conducted a study earlier this year — without including partner agencies or entities such as ambulance providers or hospitals. The result of that study is a proposal to triple the revenue from hospital fees, from $704,000 to $2.1 million, in a single year. While this would make significant progress on closing the EMS agency’s budget gap, it would do so at major cost to hospitals — individual hospitals would see designation fees that double to more than quadruple the current amount.
The proposed fee structure was part of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors’ three-day budget workshop meetings this week, prior to which Hospital Council coordinated meetings with three of the five Board of Supervisors staff members to convey hospitals’ concerns about the unprecedented fee increase.
The new fee structure must be finalized in time for the county budget approval in June, so hospitals have asked that a hospital/EMS agency working group review the fee study to examine options to bring down costs for everyone before the deadline.
Takeaway/Next Steps
Hospital representatives and Hospital Council have been monitoring the Board of Supervisors budget workgroup and will continue pressing for transparency and increased collaborative dialogue during the ongoing budget discussions.
Contact
RVP Jo Coffaro at jcoffaro@hospitalcouncil.org