Can private ambulance dispatchers give false information to get there ambulances to call faster?

So that that can beat the competition to the callCan private ambulance dispatchers give false information to get there ambulances to call faster?
In some areas, ambulance service is provided by private, rather than municipal, ambulance services. This is more prevalent in the Northeast.





Dispatchers take the information that they are given, and determine the priority of the call. If you call and say that you have fallen, and have a sore leg, that would be a lower priority call than someone with chest pains and trouble breathing.





A broken leg is a medical emergency, but is not an immediate threat to your life. A possible heart attack is.





Dispatchers have to take all the information that they have, and quickly make a determination of the severity of the call. Some may rate a call more severe than others. This may be an effort to protect themselves from lawsuits, or it may be an effort to provide better service.





Usually a private company is called by the patient or their family, or by public safety officers (police or fire) on the scene. There should be no competition.Can private ambulance dispatchers give false information to get there ambulances to call faster?
Private ambulances are not allowed to respond to 911 calls as far as I know. Their business is picking people up, and dropping people off. People who have to travel by ambulance. If a private ambulance goes to a 911 call please report them. They are not paramedics, but only EMT, or even EMS. They don't have the proper training to save lives. Not only that, their ambulances don't carry al the supplies that real rescue squads carry. Naltrexone for instance will help when somebody overdoses on Heroin. A private ambulance does not have that drug, so that person might die on the way to he hospital.
Do not listen to Gizmo please. You will probably be arrested for abusing 911. To answer your question no. And on top of that many private ambulance companies have their own 911 town/city coverage. That would be like a NY cop responding to a call in CA. It just doesn't work that way. Also note private ambulance is taking over many 911 contracts.





I won't give too much detail because Victoria pretty much explained it perfect.
Ah! My goodness! Gizmo!'s answer is horribly wrong! Sorry to attack one user like that, but I'm absolutely floored by their response. I work for a private ambulance company as a paramedic (and volunteer for the fire department in my town). Any time there is an actual emergency, if they try to call the scheduling line, they're told to hang up and call 911. We don't routinely send [scheduled] ambulances to peoples homes for emergencies. We do both routine transfers and 911 emergencies in our city, as well as paramedic intercepts to surrounding towns that only run with EMT-Bs. (So even though I'm a paramedic, I can only operate at the EMT-B level with my volunteer service)





Gizmo! is terrbily wrong because whenever you get an ambulance, you are getting trained EMS (emergency medical services) personnel. EMTs are absolutely trained to save lives, they just can't do as much as a paramedic can. And I do routine transfers all the time as a paramedic. (also, Naltrexone is not what we give for heroine ODs. We give Naloxone, also known as Narcan. And yes, we have it even though we're a private company).





But let me get to the root of your question because I think I understand it correctly. Say a hospital calls because they need a patient transported to another hospital. (Or a hospital calls because they need someone transported to a nursing home, or a private residence calls because they need their family member transported to a doctor's appointment, etc.) They'll ask how long the wait is. I can tell you dispatch does not intentionally lie to the hospital to make sure another company doesn't get the call. What can happen, however, and happens with my company is you run out of resources. So the ambulance that was supposed to pick up the patient at 1330 is now running behind because a lot of 911 calls came in so all of the ambulances are busy, and we cannot turn down 911 calls. (Figure if the patient is at the hospital, they've got life supportive measures there. If they're home and having dyspnea, they may not have those interventions). If this happens, my dispatcher will call the hospital and let them know that we are delayed. If the hospital can wait, that's great. If they can't, they may call around to see if they can get an ambulance there sooner.





Now, in the instance of emergencies, there are not usually two competing services covering the same district, so there should never be any competition getting ambulances to 911 scenes. And even if there were, the dispatchers would not give false information. If my dispatcher did that on purpose, I'd be so angry.





If you have any other questions, or need any better clarification, please feel free to edit your post and I'll try to help answer you questions!
No...........





Because this could lead to a liability law suit if something was to go wrong.........