The clock is ticking on several bills designed to help struggling ambulance providers across New York, with the end of the legislative session just days away.

A package of bills passed in the Senate last week, with several sponsored by Senator Michelle Hinchey. Now advocates are hoping the assembly passes them before the session ends later in the week.

This year, volunteer and commercial ambulance advocates have teamed up with the support of the New York State Association of Counties, hoping to make several key changes.  

Career and volunteer ambulance workers are always mobile. But many of the patients they treat don’t need to go to the hospital or never make it there. Many of those patients use Medicare or Medicaid.

“We’re able to take care of many people and do many things for them without taking them to the hospital, but we don’t get paid for that by the Medicaid program,” said Steven Kroll, Chief of Delmar-Bethlehem EMS and Legislative Chairperson for the New York State Volunteer Ambulance and Rescue Association.

But a package of bills is looking to fund reimbursement for what is called “treatment-in-place”– that is, at the scene. The bills would make what many advocates see as much-needed changes to New York’s patchwork of volunteer and paid EMS.

Kroll is hoping lawmakers also increase a tax credit for single volunteers, many of them students, from 200 to $800. Married joint filers would see an increase from $400 to $1,600.

“That’s a really big deal for somebody who’s willing to volunteer their time and give maybe 200, 300, 400, 500 hours a year to being a volunteer on the ambulance and go through 300 hours of training to become an EMT, that’s a really big deal,” Kroll said.

“The outlook for the industry is… I’ll use the word grim,” said Tim Egan, a 40-year veteran of the industry who chairs the New York United Ambulance Network (UNYAN), representing proprietary ambulance providers.

He said the industry is facing existential threats.

“We’ve seen a drop in the amount people that want to become EMTs and then those EMTs that want to become paramedics. The average age of my paramedics in the field is about 47 right now,” Egan said.

He said incentives like the tax credit and funding to treat patients at the scene would help keep ambulances running.  

“These are things that can help us stay around, that can help us continue to serve the communities that we serve,” he said.

The assembly has until Thursday to get the package of bills passed. Advocates said they have Governor Kathy Hochul’s support.