Aurora City Council moves forward with contract for new ambulance provider

AURORA | In the high-stakes world of ambulance services, Aurora’s private provider for the past eight years could be the latest casualty.

At a study session Monday, Aurora City Council tentatively agreed  8-2 to award a contract for private ambulance transportation services to Dutch-based Falck Corporation of America. Under the agreement, Falck would serve as the city’s ambulance provider for five years starting in September.

Council members Molly Markert and Renie Peterson voted against the measure.

The contract calls for fire department dispatchers to call the designated ambulance company each time an emergency ambulance is needed at a car crash scene or other medical emergency. The city also has a fleet of its own medical emergency responders. And private non-emergency ambulance service can be provided by any licensed company. But the approximate annual 27,000 dispatched ambulance calls in Aurora each year are big money, setting up a highly competitive push for the contract.

Falck competed with American Medical Response of Colorado, Inc. and Rural/Metro for the contract through a request for proposal process that evaluated the companies based on their monetary reimbursement package, scope of work, credentials,  clinical standards and financial position.

Falck received the most points in every category and also promised the largest reimbursement to the city for providing dispatch services and 911 ride-in fees at nearly $1.7 million, according to city documents. 

Rural/Metro, who has been the ambulance service provider for Aurora since 2007, scored the lowest on the RFP. Rural/Metro won the contract from AMR in 2006.

The companies were evaluated by a nine-member committee that included representatives from University Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado, The Medical Center of Aurora, City of Aurora Administration, Local 1290, and the Aurora Fire Department. Falck was selected unanimously by the committee.

“I’m trying to get to what made Falck the unanimous choice,” said Councilwoman Molly Markert, who criticized the request for proposal for giving less weight to factors such as clinical standards and more weight to factors such as monetary reimbursement.  “I really need more to make my own decision. I’ve got the RFP, I’ve got the people who were involved in the scoring, and I have the numerical scores. But I have none of the narrative or the data.”

Markert also questioned why the final tally for RFP scores for each company in the backup provided to city council were each a point off. Aurora Fire Chief Mike Garcia said he could not provide an immediate answer to that question after the meeting.

Chantel Benish, an operations general manager with Rural/Metro, said the company had filed Colorado Open Records Act requests with the city to see each competing company’s specific proposal.

“We have filed several CORAs, and we’re waiting to see where it goes,” she said. “We don’t have an opportunity to raise our voice and ask the questions. We would like the ability to protest, but there’s not a protest timeframe.” 

Aurora City Attorney Mike Hyman said the city could not release the RFP applications until a contract was approved by the city council at a regular meeting.

“In any contract setting, we don’t release the bidding information until after the award is taken up by the city council … all that we have right now is a recommendation. There’s nothing final until a contract is awarded.”

Falck Corporation of America is a branch of the Denmark-based Falck Group, the world’s largest international ambulance fleet.