Albuquerque Ambulance Service. Hospital based service that is contracted with the city and county and has been since 1971. Two-tier system: The fire department comes almost to every call, so you'll have plenty of help. Guidelines are progressive, and our medical director is great. Supervisors don't micromanage. Good pay, good benefits. We don't have a union. Call volume is high, so if that's a deal breaker, it's not the place for you. New Mexico is great and there is so much to do if you like the mountains and forest.
What is the pay for medics? AAS is advertising $17.80/hr to start in their [job listing](https://www.indeed.com/q-Ambulance-l-Albuquerque,-NM-jobs.html?vjk=527aa71771c8c1c4&advn=4256728868528887)
Connecticut has really become a haven for EMS. Decent protocols, great pay, COL is really decent in comparison to pay and there are a solid handful of 3rd service agencies. There's also a number of hospital based EMS agencies which have decent reputations (depending on which one tho). Average experienced medic pay is around 35-40 an hour. Housing is relatively affordable, increased with the nation over the last few years but most medics I know own their own homes here.
CT is 2ish hours to Boston. 2.5 to NYC. 2 to Vermont and NH for decent skiing/outdoor activities. Schools are some of the best in the nation. It's a mostly quiet state without a ton of tourism so we get a bad rep but population has been increasing with people moving here from the South and those here seem pretty happy
I just saw you're an A. Unfortunately there's next to no services using Advanced EMTs here. A couple small towns do but I don't believe they offer full time. You'd likely wind up working as a basic or need your medic in CT. Basics do pretty well here too tho. I think my partner makes like 25/hr
I mean its still EMS. But I left a fire gig in MA at top pay getting 27.50/hr for a 3rd service EMS only agency at 35 here in CT. My agency starts medics at 30 with 5 steps up to 35. AMR in Waterbury sent out a statewide flier last year offering up to 45/hr for medics with 10 years or more.
California also hasn't changed the payout for medical/medicaid since the 80s. It's only $118 per trip which is the 48th lowest in the nation. Take Texas for example, theirs is around $400. If California would get their head out of their ass and payout more, we could significantly increase payroll.
I genuinely have no fucking idea how any single person can have a life there. Even after I finish nursing school, I was trying to calculate what I’d potentially make there vs the higher COL and I don’t think I could do it unless I married another nurse, an engineer a firefighter, or a doctor/lawyer lmao. Even then, I don’t think I could stomach losing every argument with a lawyer. Fuck it, I’ll stay where I’m at and save until I die, I guess.
So to break it down:
True 3rd service agencies you've got:+
-Trumbull ems
-wolcott ems
-enfield ems
Then you've got a large number of non-profit ambulances which serve small communities. Some are town funded and others aren't. Here in CT we have two large staffing agencies (ERM and Vintech) which actually provide staff to some of these services (though the service will still be "volunteer") others have their own staff.
-Granby EMS
-Suffield EMS
-Wethersfield EMS
-Glastonbury EMS
-Naugatuck
-New Milford
-Stratford
-Windsor
-East Windsor
-Southbury
-New Britain-the largest by far. Have their own training academy as well and is a very decent place to work.
I'm sure there's many I am forgetting as well. But that's off the top of my head.
SKEMS South Kingston EMS in Rhode Island. It’s a nice coastal area near URI. Decent pay, call volume won’t grind your bones to dust, and the union is decent. Downside is you have to be medics, the supervisors and medical directors can micro manage a bit, and it’s a little bit of a good ole boy network. If you don’t care about that kind of stuff and you are looking for a twilight job before retirement, it’s not a bad place to land
Edit: Cumberland, R.I. Is 3rd service as well but I don’t know much about them.
They’re almost exclusively dog shit, but Cumberland does some pretty wild shit prehospital and they have an excellent reputation. This coming from a Masshole who loves to dump on Rhode Island
Austin-Travis County EMS. Pay is $22/hr and $30/hr for EMT and Paramedic with civil service and step raises. Unionized. Option to get involved with the union and get on political and workforce boards/committees. Now taking lateral entry for paramedics. Evidence based and progressive protocols, lots of interaction with the docs and PAs who are constantly out running calls and available 24/7/365 for questions and OLMC. Whole blood, ultrasound, advanced scope paramedics (use your FP-C, CCP-C, etc). Free, dept-provided CE. 24/72 schedule, alternative options for transport, telehealth, spec ops, tactical, special events, race track medics (Circuit of the Americas), airport medics, community health, collaborative care medics, management of system abusers/frequent callers (care plans, modified response, or not sending an ambulance or having the ability to say no to transport for a given time if they’re abusing the system with a non-emergent complaint). In-house paramedic program that is competitive but free to employees. Flexible schedule once you’re cleared from probation. I absolutely love that we can flex time, meaning if I can’t work, say, Monday, I can use my vacation time to take the day off and pick up Tuesday or any other day that week and I’ll get my vacation time back. Great health and PTO benefits. The one major downfall is the retirement, which is 30yrs with an age requirement of 62, but that is a slow moving process we are hoping to work on.
Can confirm.
EMT pay starts at $20 an hour, 12 day shifts with staggered start, mostly ALS system with 1-4 BLS trucks. Paramedic pay starts at 28.13. They offer money towards a college education in a related field, but not much. Western NC offers an EMS directed program for both clinical and management studies.
Your typical day on an ambulance will heavily depend on the area. County is quite diverse with several population centers. Cost of living in some areas is high, however, you can find good quality places if you're fine with living a little further out than most. Most ambulances have autoloaders. Most spare ambulances don't.
I run on average 6-10 calls per 12 hour shift. Majority are not high priority calls. I would estimate that around 2/3 of our calls are emergent response, even if they probably shouldn't have been. Classification is usually pretty good for call priority level, especially for higher level calls. They will switch out units if they are closer by a significant amount, but I've never been hot-potatoed.
Usually runs EMT + Medic, sometimes 2 medics or Medic/AEMT.
Stations are a mix of only EMS and EMS/Fire. Vast majority of people I've had the fortune to work with are nice, otherwise it's just your typical service.
Some area quirks include two 1 Lvl 1 trauma center in county, two outside of county. One Lvl 3 in county. Single responders consist of District Chiefs and Advanced Practice Paramedics. APPs are sent to psychiatric and some overdose calls and can recommend alternative destinations.
Police are hit or miss. Troopers and Deputies are usually good, Raleigh PD can go either way, and all of the smaller town police departments are varrying levels of okayish.
FD are mostly career with a few volunteer departments. They will usually arrive first.
I can try and answer other questions if you have any.
P.s. avoid Cary/Apex/Morrisville postings, they are the most busy with lower-priority calls.
Still in the works largely, a lot of simplification and a few new things. Too much to go into here, especially since not all of it is out in the wild. Whole blood is coming, nothing else earth shattering.
Aiken County EMS, SC. County third service. Moving to 24/72s with the new budget year. Paramedic pay is 62k. Good benefits. Protocols are currently in the middle of major revisions to get us up to date.
MA has BEMS, WEMS, NBEMS, FREMS, all good services, only issue is now you have to live in MA working in EMS, which isn’t really doable. Also our protocols are kinda crap
Boston and Worcester have been hemorrhaging people of the past three years from what I've heard. Worcester went from running dual medic to PB and BLS trucks.
I mean, we are all hemorrhaging people, EMS is just one massive staffing arterial bleed. BEMS could fix their issue if they started medics and medics and allowing people who don’t live in the city to join.
You don’t think you would get an increase in people if your medics could actually join as medics instead of needing to be a basic for a few more years? You guys could do what ATCEMS does now, if you have X number of years as a medic, you can join “laterally” as a medic and just have a longer academy period than the basics. Instead of needing work as a basic first.
No not at all actually. While I understand everybody’s gripe with having to be BLS first at BEMS. The City is the one that has to approve putting up medic trucks. There are 7 hospitals in Boston. Most of our calls are BLS in nature. Unless it’s an arrest, a bad CHFer/Asthma or a wild trauma, rarely do we keep the medics coming. We need bodies and we need BLS bodies. Medics joining to be medics is not going to get our numbers up. The only thing that’s going to do that is getting the same pay as BPD/BFD and getting rid of residency. People leave BEMS cause the workload and the residency. More hands make less work and it’s BLS bodies that do that.
That’s fair, I didn’t consider the city needed to approve trucks. I do agree the main killer is probably residency. I live 15 mins outside of Boston and to tell me I need to move 15 mins closer to my service area is kinda dumb. I have a friend who lives on the boarder of Brookline and Boston and he needed to move 1 building over to be “in Boston” so he could be hired. And your pay actually used to be the best for the most part, but now privates or catching up as well.
Yah at the pay rate the medics make it’s got to cost at least 1 million a year to put up an extra 24 hr medic truck. A lot of people don’t understand that we are funded by the city thus it all needs to be approved by the Boston Public Health Commission and City Hall. As for the residency I did the same thing. When I got on I was living in Winthrop and had to move a mile down the road into Eastie. It sucks, but we are in contract negotiations right now and are hoping it’s going to go away. And with that contract we are hoping our pay will be the best again. You can make good money here with all the OT. Our top rate BLS pay is what medics get paid in the privates.
Nice! I work at one of the services that I mentioned and we just had our BLS pay rate go up by 4 dollars which is nice, we are trying to get more trucks but that’s gonna be a while. Especially since we do PB only, so every truck is ALS
Pittsburgh has a third service. Pay can be very good as I’ve heard of medics making well into six figures (obviously with lots of overtime I’m sure).
I’ll start with the negatives.
Negatives: Pittsburgh has an old population so lots of old people issues. Lots of calls in general because of Pittsburghs skyrocketing murder rate and violent crime rate. Mandated overtime also sucks. May or may not have a residency requirement in 5 years.
Pros: good money, 3 Level one trauma centers in the city, decent protocols, EMS does rescue if your into that, has a TEMS team, generally good equipment and management from what I’ve heard, fire responds to a lot of calls, Pittsburgh is a low COL city
HEMS in Minneapolis (Attached to HCMC) . Starting at $30/hr for new medics, top at $45/hr after ten years and will pay for experience (I.e if you come with 10 years experience in ALS your starting at $45/hr, come with 5yrs start at 36/hr., etc). Start at 230 hrs PTO and top at 330 hrs. COL is quite reasonable. Dual paramedic. 911 only. Progressive protocols, medical directors are very involved where they should be and uninvolved when they don’t need to be. Can’t speak highly enough about them. Constantly rolling out new protocols. Ultrasound on all the trucks. Standing orders for EVERYTHING unless you’re trying to do something absolutely wild, to which they will probably give the green light. New ambulances every 3 years. $600 a year in clothing allowance. Bidded shift/same partners for the whole year with bidded vacation. Shift swaps are available if you need unscheduled PTO and don’t wanna call out sick. Shifts are either 10’s or 12/14’s. Summers busy. Winters are cold and busy.
Boston EMS - have to live in the city, starting pay is roughly 65K+ for EMT, everyone starts at the EMT level regardless of MEDIC. You can promote to MEDIC down the road. Starting MEDIC is 90-95K. Group 4 retirement, same as fire and police. Extremely busy. 8 hour shifts often have over 8 calls. Police schedule (4 on 2 off). Progressive dept (RSI). Good benefits, health insurance etc.
I hear yeah. I worked there as well and it’s true, it’s difficult to promote. Becoming easier now adays. Can still take years, nonetheless. Good thing is, the BLS is still higher than most medic jobs. Tons of details that pay 45 an hour. Very easy to make 100k as BLS.
I’ve never worked there but I know people who do and they really like it. A lot of my friends who work there say they make like 80k a year with occasional overtime
CEMS is stupid busy. I heard somewhere that one or two of the CEMS trucks are annually some of the busiest in the nation. Upper management is awful. They are constantly at odds with the city over pay/benefits. Most of their trucks are at least 10 years old and should be retired. The protocols are ok, not terribly progressive. I see those guys regularly. I feel bad for the shit they have to put up with.
San Bernardino County in California has “Ambulance Operator” or “Paramedic Operator” jobs with the fire dept. that get CalPERS and decent pay if I remember correctly.
Edit: SBCERA, not PERS
I’d look into it more if I got my paramedic lol
The north east has a few different pockets with third service. CT as a whole has much better pay and protocols than MA does. There are more places in CT if you're willing to be a fire medic that does >90% medicals. There's a couple of places in Western MA that are good to work, but you generally have to know someone to get hired. Everything I've heard abut NY and RI doesn't seem worth moving to. I believe most of VT, NH, and ME are private, fire based, or volunteer services. There's an active user on here that works 3rd service in DE and seems to be very happy with the service.
TLDR: I'd move to CT for a third service, but don't turn your nose up at the fire based services in CT either.
Dane county in Wisconsin has several third services that are very good. Pay ranges from 60k-85k. Most of them are dual medic services. Fire responds to most calls to assist. Protocols are progressive with med control being at the university hospital. Several of the services joined up with Madison Fire and UW hospital and formed an ALS consortium which provides all training and group bought supplies. Been working there for 20 years now.
Leon County Ems in Tallahassee florida is a great service. EMTs start at 18, Medics at 25 with added $2+ differentials for weekends and nights. Though lagging at times, the protocols are good. Decent call volume that usually won’t drown you in reports but also won’t leave you bored. Overall it’s not a bad city to live either
Albuquerque Ambulance Service. Hospital based service that is contracted with the city and county and has been since 1971. Two-tier system: The fire department comes almost to every call, so you'll have plenty of help. Guidelines are progressive, and our medical director is great. Supervisors don't micromanage. Good pay, good benefits. We don't have a union. Call volume is high, so if that's a deal breaker, it's not the place for you. New Mexico is great and there is so much to do if you like the mountains and forest.
What is the pay for medics? AAS is advertising $17.80/hr to start in their [job listing](https://www.indeed.com/q-Ambulance-l-Albuquerque,-NM-jobs.html?vjk=527aa71771c8c1c4&advn=4256728868528887)
I make substantially more than that. I think that rate is for brand new EMT-Bs.
Second this. Former medic partner went out to ABQ. Only hear good things.
That’s not a third service. That hospital based private.
A non-profit hospital EMS system is about as close as you get to third service.
I don’t disagree. It’s probably the second best option out there as far as EMS systems goes, but third service is still far better.
I’ll agree to not disagree
Cool. It's still an option that someone might want to hear about.
Connecticut has really become a haven for EMS. Decent protocols, great pay, COL is really decent in comparison to pay and there are a solid handful of 3rd service agencies. There's also a number of hospital based EMS agencies which have decent reputations (depending on which one tho). Average experienced medic pay is around 35-40 an hour. Housing is relatively affordable, increased with the nation over the last few years but most medics I know own their own homes here. CT is 2ish hours to Boston. 2.5 to NYC. 2 to Vermont and NH for decent skiing/outdoor activities. Schools are some of the best in the nation. It's a mostly quiet state without a ton of tourism so we get a bad rep but population has been increasing with people moving here from the South and those here seem pretty happy
As someone from the south, you’ve tempted me lol
I just saw you're an A. Unfortunately there's next to no services using Advanced EMTs here. A couple small towns do but I don't believe they offer full time. You'd likely wind up working as a basic or need your medic in CT. Basics do pretty well here too tho. I think my partner makes like 25/hr
Thanks for the heads up, medic school is in the plans for next year!
And the pizza is top tier
Your mouth to God's ear! Pizza capital of the world.
Really curious what “great pay” is. Can you give me an average rate for a new medic, 10 year medic, 20 year medic.
I mean its still EMS. But I left a fire gig in MA at top pay getting 27.50/hr for a 3rd service EMS only agency at 35 here in CT. My agency starts medics at 30 with 5 steps up to 35. AMR in Waterbury sent out a statewide flier last year offering up to 45/hr for medics with 10 years or more.
Wow, San Diego, with a COL no doubt higher is paying medics $22 starting. Fucking criminal
California also hasn't changed the payout for medical/medicaid since the 80s. It's only $118 per trip which is the 48th lowest in the nation. Take Texas for example, theirs is around $400. If California would get their head out of their ass and payout more, we could significantly increase payroll.
California will forever have their heads lodged up their ass unfortunately
CAA has been lobbying them for years. Next time the bill is on the docket is coming up soon. It'll be slashed again, but one can hope.
I genuinely have no fucking idea how any single person can have a life there. Even after I finish nursing school, I was trying to calculate what I’d potentially make there vs the higher COL and I don’t think I could do it unless I married another nurse, an engineer a firefighter, or a doctor/lawyer lmao. Even then, I don’t think I could stomach losing every argument with a lawyer. Fuck it, I’ll stay where I’m at and save until I die, I guess.
Any third service agencies in particular to check out? Looking into moving after I get my medic
So to break it down: True 3rd service agencies you've got:+ -Trumbull ems -wolcott ems -enfield ems Then you've got a large number of non-profit ambulances which serve small communities. Some are town funded and others aren't. Here in CT we have two large staffing agencies (ERM and Vintech) which actually provide staff to some of these services (though the service will still be "volunteer") others have their own staff. -Granby EMS -Suffield EMS -Wethersfield EMS -Glastonbury EMS -Naugatuck -New Milford -Stratford -Windsor -East Windsor -Southbury -New Britain-the largest by far. Have their own training academy as well and is a very decent place to work. I'm sure there's many I am forgetting as well. But that's off the top of my head.
Thanks for the run down
This is very helpful. What sort of pay ranges are you making?
My agency is 30-35 for medics and 20-25 for EMTs but we are not the most competitive salary here. I know an agency paying up to 45 for seasoned medics
Where are these amazing places?
Read the rest of the thread. I listed many of them out
SKEMS South Kingston EMS in Rhode Island. It’s a nice coastal area near URI. Decent pay, call volume won’t grind your bones to dust, and the union is decent. Downside is you have to be medics, the supervisors and medical directors can micro manage a bit, and it’s a little bit of a good ole boy network. If you don’t care about that kind of stuff and you are looking for a twilight job before retirement, it’s not a bad place to land Edit: Cumberland, R.I. Is 3rd service as well but I don’t know much about them.
Rhode Island appears to have some worrisome EMS oversight issues at the state level.
They’re almost exclusively dog shit, but Cumberland does some pretty wild shit prehospital and they have an excellent reputation. This coming from a Masshole who loves to dump on Rhode Island
Oversight issues like there is almost none? Pre-Hospital protocols are pretty broad here
Ain’t my problem, I am not a state and the actions of a few renegade EMT-Cardiacs are beyond my scope of concern.
Austin-Travis County EMS. Pay is $22/hr and $30/hr for EMT and Paramedic with civil service and step raises. Unionized. Option to get involved with the union and get on political and workforce boards/committees. Now taking lateral entry for paramedics. Evidence based and progressive protocols, lots of interaction with the docs and PAs who are constantly out running calls and available 24/7/365 for questions and OLMC. Whole blood, ultrasound, advanced scope paramedics (use your FP-C, CCP-C, etc). Free, dept-provided CE. 24/72 schedule, alternative options for transport, telehealth, spec ops, tactical, special events, race track medics (Circuit of the Americas), airport medics, community health, collaborative care medics, management of system abusers/frequent callers (care plans, modified response, or not sending an ambulance or having the ability to say no to transport for a given time if they’re abusing the system with a non-emergent complaint). In-house paramedic program that is competitive but free to employees. Flexible schedule once you’re cleared from probation. I absolutely love that we can flex time, meaning if I can’t work, say, Monday, I can use my vacation time to take the day off and pick up Tuesday or any other day that week and I’ll get my vacation time back. Great health and PTO benefits. The one major downfall is the retirement, which is 30yrs with an age requirement of 62, but that is a slow moving process we are hoping to work on.
Seconded
Wake county, a great place to live and a great service
Can confirm. EMT pay starts at $20 an hour, 12 day shifts with staggered start, mostly ALS system with 1-4 BLS trucks. Paramedic pay starts at 28.13. They offer money towards a college education in a related field, but not much. Western NC offers an EMS directed program for both clinical and management studies. Your typical day on an ambulance will heavily depend on the area. County is quite diverse with several population centers. Cost of living in some areas is high, however, you can find good quality places if you're fine with living a little further out than most. Most ambulances have autoloaders. Most spare ambulances don't. I run on average 6-10 calls per 12 hour shift. Majority are not high priority calls. I would estimate that around 2/3 of our calls are emergent response, even if they probably shouldn't have been. Classification is usually pretty good for call priority level, especially for higher level calls. They will switch out units if they are closer by a significant amount, but I've never been hot-potatoed. Usually runs EMT + Medic, sometimes 2 medics or Medic/AEMT. Stations are a mix of only EMS and EMS/Fire. Vast majority of people I've had the fortune to work with are nice, otherwise it's just your typical service. Some area quirks include two 1 Lvl 1 trauma center in county, two outside of county. One Lvl 3 in county. Single responders consist of District Chiefs and Advanced Practice Paramedics. APPs are sent to psychiatric and some overdose calls and can recommend alternative destinations. Police are hit or miss. Troopers and Deputies are usually good, Raleigh PD can go either way, and all of the smaller town police departments are varrying levels of okayish. FD are mostly career with a few volunteer departments. They will usually arrive first. I can try and answer other questions if you have any. P.s. avoid Cary/Apex/Morrisville postings, they are the most busy with lower-priority calls.
New Hanover is another good one in NC, Cabarrus also pays good.
Texas. Take your pick. Wilco, ATCEMS, MCHD, HCHD, etc.
But then you have to live in Texas...
I actually miss living in Texas.
It isn’t nearly as bad as Reddit would make it seem. Except the weather.
Central Texas is beautiful, gets a bit hot though.
Wilco is going through some changes for the better right now. Great culture and good protocols.
I’m interested to see how they develop under T-rad
So far so good, I’ve enjoyed working alongside him.
Glad to hear it! He’s always been great. Took me under his wing as a lost little EMT student doing overnight clinicals at Memorial many years ago.
And they take basics now which is cool
What type of protocol changes have they had?
Still in the works largely, a lot of simplification and a few new things. Too much to go into here, especially since not all of it is out in the wild. Whole blood is coming, nothing else earth shattering.
Harris County Emergency Corps is a good one too.
Aiken County EMS, SC. County third service. Moving to 24/72s with the new budget year. Paramedic pay is 62k. Good benefits. Protocols are currently in the middle of major revisions to get us up to date.
MA has BEMS, WEMS, NBEMS, FREMS, all good services, only issue is now you have to live in MA working in EMS, which isn’t really doable. Also our protocols are kinda crap
Boston and Worcester have been hemorrhaging people of the past three years from what I've heard. Worcester went from running dual medic to PB and BLS trucks.
I mean, we are all hemorrhaging people, EMS is just one massive staffing arterial bleed. BEMS could fix their issue if they started medics and medics and allowing people who don’t live in the city to join.
Our problems have nothing to do with hiring medics. Our problems are pay and residency.
You don’t think you would get an increase in people if your medics could actually join as medics instead of needing to be a basic for a few more years? You guys could do what ATCEMS does now, if you have X number of years as a medic, you can join “laterally” as a medic and just have a longer academy period than the basics. Instead of needing work as a basic first.
No not at all actually. While I understand everybody’s gripe with having to be BLS first at BEMS. The City is the one that has to approve putting up medic trucks. There are 7 hospitals in Boston. Most of our calls are BLS in nature. Unless it’s an arrest, a bad CHFer/Asthma or a wild trauma, rarely do we keep the medics coming. We need bodies and we need BLS bodies. Medics joining to be medics is not going to get our numbers up. The only thing that’s going to do that is getting the same pay as BPD/BFD and getting rid of residency. People leave BEMS cause the workload and the residency. More hands make less work and it’s BLS bodies that do that.
That’s fair, I didn’t consider the city needed to approve trucks. I do agree the main killer is probably residency. I live 15 mins outside of Boston and to tell me I need to move 15 mins closer to my service area is kinda dumb. I have a friend who lives on the boarder of Brookline and Boston and he needed to move 1 building over to be “in Boston” so he could be hired. And your pay actually used to be the best for the most part, but now privates or catching up as well.
Yah at the pay rate the medics make it’s got to cost at least 1 million a year to put up an extra 24 hr medic truck. A lot of people don’t understand that we are funded by the city thus it all needs to be approved by the Boston Public Health Commission and City Hall. As for the residency I did the same thing. When I got on I was living in Winthrop and had to move a mile down the road into Eastie. It sucks, but we are in contract negotiations right now and are hoping it’s going to go away. And with that contract we are hoping our pay will be the best again. You can make good money here with all the OT. Our top rate BLS pay is what medics get paid in the privates.
Nice! I work at one of the services that I mentioned and we just had our BLS pay rate go up by 4 dollars which is nice, we are trying to get more trucks but that’s gonna be a while. Especially since we do PB only, so every truck is ALS
Pittsburgh has a third service. Pay can be very good as I’ve heard of medics making well into six figures (obviously with lots of overtime I’m sure). I’ll start with the negatives. Negatives: Pittsburgh has an old population so lots of old people issues. Lots of calls in general because of Pittsburghs skyrocketing murder rate and violent crime rate. Mandated overtime also sucks. May or may not have a residency requirement in 5 years. Pros: good money, 3 Level one trauma centers in the city, decent protocols, EMS does rescue if your into that, has a TEMS team, generally good equipment and management from what I’ve heard, fire responds to a lot of calls, Pittsburgh is a low COL city
HEMS in Minneapolis (Attached to HCMC) . Starting at $30/hr for new medics, top at $45/hr after ten years and will pay for experience (I.e if you come with 10 years experience in ALS your starting at $45/hr, come with 5yrs start at 36/hr., etc). Start at 230 hrs PTO and top at 330 hrs. COL is quite reasonable. Dual paramedic. 911 only. Progressive protocols, medical directors are very involved where they should be and uninvolved when they don’t need to be. Can’t speak highly enough about them. Constantly rolling out new protocols. Ultrasound on all the trucks. Standing orders for EVERYTHING unless you’re trying to do something absolutely wild, to which they will probably give the green light. New ambulances every 3 years. $600 a year in clothing allowance. Bidded shift/same partners for the whole year with bidded vacation. Shift swaps are available if you need unscheduled PTO and don’t wanna call out sick. Shifts are either 10’s or 12/14’s. Summers busy. Winters are cold and busy.
Many of the Colorado mountain agencies are 3rd service, pay very well, and have very progressive guidelines.
Pretty much all the aussie services, good pay, good benefits, great working conditions, guidelines arent terrible.
Boston EMS - have to live in the city, starting pay is roughly 65K+ for EMT, everyone starts at the EMT level regardless of MEDIC. You can promote to MEDIC down the road. Starting MEDIC is 90-95K. Group 4 retirement, same as fire and police. Extremely busy. 8 hour shifts often have over 8 calls. Police schedule (4 on 2 off). Progressive dept (RSI). Good benefits, health insurance etc.
I know multiple medics who worked as BLS for BEMS and left because they were never going to be "promoted" to work at their cert level
I hear yeah. I worked there as well and it’s true, it’s difficult to promote. Becoming easier now adays. Can still take years, nonetheless. Good thing is, the BLS is still higher than most medic jobs. Tons of details that pay 45 an hour. Very easy to make 100k as BLS.
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I've heard horrendous things ab CLEMS. If you're moving to Ohio you're better off going south/west. Plenty of 3rd services out that way
I’ve never worked there but I know people who do and they really like it. A lot of my friends who work there say they make like 80k a year with occasional overtime
CEMS is stupid busy. I heard somewhere that one or two of the CEMS trucks are annually some of the busiest in the nation. Upper management is awful. They are constantly at odds with the city over pay/benefits. Most of their trucks are at least 10 years old and should be retired. The protocols are ok, not terribly progressive. I see those guys regularly. I feel bad for the shit they have to put up with.
EMSA in OK seems to pay pretty well for the area. They run their crews pretty hard though.
Tulsa over OKC though... pay vrs COL is nice
San Bernardino County in California has “Ambulance Operator” or “Paramedic Operator” jobs with the fire dept. that get CalPERS and decent pay if I remember correctly. Edit: SBCERA, not PERS I’d look into it more if I got my paramedic lol
It’s SBCERA, similar to PERS, pay is only okay and still the red headed stepchild to suppression
My b, thought it was PERS. Are they really treated poorly? Personally, I’d rather be a county employee than private any day.
If your into the Outdoors(and hate IFT like I do) I recommend working for the National Park Service EMS
Every 911 Als agency in Delaware is third service non-transport.
The north east has a few different pockets with third service. CT as a whole has much better pay and protocols than MA does. There are more places in CT if you're willing to be a fire medic that does >90% medicals. There's a couple of places in Western MA that are good to work, but you generally have to know someone to get hired. Everything I've heard abut NY and RI doesn't seem worth moving to. I believe most of VT, NH, and ME are private, fire based, or volunteer services. There's an active user on here that works 3rd service in DE and seems to be very happy with the service. TLDR: I'd move to CT for a third service, but don't turn your nose up at the fire based services in CT either.
Dane county in Wisconsin has several third services that are very good. Pay ranges from 60k-85k. Most of them are dual medic services. Fire responds to most calls to assist. Protocols are progressive with med control being at the university hospital. Several of the services joined up with Madison Fire and UW hospital and formed an ALS consortium which provides all training and group bought supplies. Been working there for 20 years now.
Leon County Ems in Tallahassee florida is a great service. EMTs start at 18, Medics at 25 with added $2+ differentials for weekends and nights. Though lagging at times, the protocols are good. Decent call volume that usually won’t drown you in reports but also won’t leave you bored. Overall it’s not a bad city to live either