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County EMS data shows growing nonresident share of calls; commissioners weigh funding implications
Summary
Clear Creek County staff presented multi‑year EMS and sheriff response data showing a rising share of calls and transported patients who are nonresidents. Presenters and commissioners discussed how that trend affects reimbursements and time-on-task for paramedics and whether visitors should contribute more to public‑safety costs.
County staff presented Clear Creek EMS and sheriff call-data analysis to the Board of County Commissioners, showing a steady increase in responses involving nonresidents and a corresponding rise in time spent on calls by county paramedics.
Aaron Brawley of Clear Creek County, who compiled the EMS statistics from February 2018 to present, said the data show two linked trends: the county is responding to a larger share of nonresident incidents, and nonresidents made up a larger share of transports in 2024 than in prior years. Aaron said the county defines call volume as responses (whether or not the patient is transported) and noted that transport volume is the primary mechanism for billing insurance.
Using multi‑year figures, the presenter reported that residents who call EMS were transported at a higher rate (about 89.5%) than nonresidents (about 62.3%). Aaron told the group the EMS time-on-task metric (the period from dispatch to reports that crews are back in service) rose from about 3,864 hours in 2022 to about 4,400 hours in 2023 and to nearly 5,400 hours in 2024. He said those hours exclude ancillary tasks such as restocking or completing patient-care reports, and that actual staff time devoted to calls is therefore larger than the on‑task metric.
County presenters added that the EMS ambulance reimbursement rate (the portion of billed charges actually collected) runs in the low 30 percent range, that not all patients have insurance, and that the county’s growing time‑on‑task for nonresident incidents is a driver of personnel and budget pressure. Aaron suggested that time-on-task is a useful way to compare operational burden across resident and visitor populations.
Sheriff data shown at the same meeting paralleled the EMS trend but with a larger nonresident share: one sheriff data slide showed nonresident calls rising toward and above 80 percent in recent years for certain call types. Presenters and commissioners noted this sheriff-level nonresident share is likely undercounted because ZIP‑code tracking can categorize nearby front-range ZIP codes as county residents when they are not.
Commissioners and municipal leaders asked for further breakdowns — for instance, by call type (motor vehicle accidents, cardiac events) and by reimbursement source (Medicare, Medicaid, commercial insurance, private pay, write-offs). County staff said some of those analyses are available but would take additional time to produce.
Ending: Commissioners said the nonresident trend and rising time‑on‑task sharpen the conversation about how to fund public safety; staff said the findings would inform subsequent budget and ballot‑measure discussions.
