Tennessee Ambulance Service Association
May 3, 2012
State EMS Office
10:00 A.M.
Board Members Present: Brandon Ward, Chuck Latimer, Derek Merritt, John Combes, John Fitzsimmons, Joyce Noles, Lis Henley, and Terry Arnold. Other members present: Shannon Seaton Med Center, Glynn Mooney, Brian Smith, Whitney Miller, Shaun Hale, Jon Guthrie from Air Evac. Terry Arnold – Carter County EMS. Doug McQuary – First Call. Jackie Wilkerson – State EMS.
President Ward called the meeting to order at 10:12 am. He reported to the board on the conditions of Mike Shankle and Larry Billingsley, who have major illnesses.
Reading of April 5, 2012 meeting minutes. They were approved, motion by Lis Henley seconded by Derek Merritt.
Financial report was not read due to the illness of Larry Billingsley, but President Ward stated no major bills had come in for payment. Motion to table financial until June by Fitzsimmons, second by Henley. All voted in favor.
State EMS Report was given by Jackie Wilkerson. Jackie reported on the pending rulemaking and that all the kinks had been worked out and that he thought it would pass. Nita Jernigan has resigned her position as consultant in Region 3 to take a directors job. This position will be posted.
NAEMT Report by J. Fitzsimmons – nothing current to report.
Mid winter report by McQuary – Doug asked that anyone on the conference stay about 15 minutes after the Board Meeting. TASA Board will meet all day on June 7th starting at 8 a.m. to work on the conferences. Mid-Winter conference will be February 20, 21, and 22, 2013.
President Ward gave the Legislative Report. Good news that the Senate bill supporting TN Care increase was passed unanimously adding an additional 1.75% of TennCare funds. This will be matched with 2/3rds by the Federal government. This is already in the Governor’s budget and the money should start trickling in after July 1st, 2012. The total of this should be around 21 million dollars. Any other bills pending most likely are not going to be addressed due to the pending of the schedule.
TASA immediately will address the open State EMS Board positions. One particular is the County Executive position. We would like someone familiar with EMS in that position. The other position will be a physician, which recently has been from East TN.
Old Business: TASA Logo committee is working on a new logo for us. Some work has been accomplished. The certified ambulance coder class was discussed again. We are going to have to continue to discuss this due to the cost and time constraints. It is a much higher cost with no downtime. TASA is going to send out a questionnaire to find interest.
New Business: John Combes reported that there will by an EMS Bass fishing tournament for EMS week which will go to a local charity. The date will be May 14th. The details are on the Region 3 Directors association website.
MTEMSDA has a conference at Montgomery Bell State park on May 10-11, 2012. May 14-15 Air Evac is hosting a STEMI/12 Lead conference in Jackson at Jackson General Hospital. Bob Page will be speaking.
The Star of Life Ceremony is May 24th in Nashville. TNEMSC is asking that TASA sponsor a table. We are going to have to speak with our treasurer to check our current funds. It costs at least $1000 to secure a table. John Combes motioned that we not sponsor a table, seconded by Lis Henley – motion passed. Another motion to send two members from TASA by Lis Henley second by Fitzsimmons – motion passed.
Chuck Latimer discussed with a nationwide problem with Medicare resulting in massive reductions in payment to EMS due to the change in data submission. MAC’s do not appear to know how to handle these changes from EMS. This is crippling many ambulance services. TASA is going to get information out to everyone on how to let our US Representatives know what is happening.
Next meeting will be June 7th at Vanderbilt Police Department, which will last all day. This is normally the annual two day work meeting.
Motion to adjourn at 11:10.