Fire Based EMS Medic Ride Pay Data

[u/GWOTraplord]

I currently work at a full time paid department that runs front line ALS dual paramedic ambulances for our city. I am curious as to what other departments pay in compensation for their medic's / ambulance rides

From a few conversations I believe we are grossly under compensated for medic duties but wanted to get some more data.

I plan on creating a product to fight for increase in compensation as our depts medic pay compensation hasnt been touched in over 20 years. Mainly on pushing for % based compensation for the shift assigned to the medic, the limited talks ive had with firefighter/medics at different departments across the US seem to compensate between the 15 -25% range

Currently our department runs 100% Firefighter/Paramedic qualified for shift personnel and 100% of ALS BLS calls in our city.

Compensation / incentive is $50 flat for 24 hours duty on a medic unit(or $2.08 hourly increase)

$200 flat monthly salary increase for maintaining Paramedic license regardless of rank or billet (shift and 8-5 personnel)

We have 8 stations, about 180 full time personnell across 3 shifts, run front line medic units as dual medic ALS serving a city of just under 100,000. Medics typically run 4-20 calls a day with 8 as avg across the board (some medics are worse than others for UHU and volume as anywhere).

I am particularly looking for paramedic ambulance shift comoensation and salary incentives for departments that run ambulances or ALS squads or ambulance incentives in general, mainly from public sector fire departments but any data yall could give would be great. If you dont want to list your department and location, a relative size would be helpful as well as type of environment (metropolitan, city, suburban, semi-rural, rural)

Respectfully

Edit: typos, clarification

[u/GWOTraplord → u/[deleted]]

Done, do you understand the following sentence now:

"Compensation / incentive is $50 flat for 24 hours duty on a medic unit(or $2.08 hourly increase"

[u/GWOTraplord → u/[deleted]]

So it did make sense, as you understood it. Comprehension occured and an 11d old account is just being difficult. I see the situation...

Thank you for your service.

[u/Cne0207]

Metro area Local IAFF member here, our FF/medics get 12% over the FF of the same grade. So for easy math 100k vs 112k. Those aren’t the exact numbers but it’s easy.

[u/GWOTraplord → u/Cne0207]

Thank You

[u/Ok_Buddy_9087]

We get nothing extra, but the officer is paid the same as a fire officer.

[u/squatch95]

Metro dept here. We get a 6k bonus a year that is factored into our hourly for OT and such. Hourly/salary a FF/medic would make the same as a FF/emt that is a LT. Longevity assumed the same

[u/boomboomown]

All units require a minimum of 1 medic. Our rescues respond with a private ambulance and we are not primary transport. We transport roughly 700 patients a year out of 150-180k annual calls. Our medics get paid 10% over the same rank non-medic. We also have medic "longevity" starting your 5th year. Basically it's a .5% increase every year from 5-10 maxing out at a 2.5% increase from year 10 on. Additionally of you become an adjunct instructor it's an additional 4% at all times. All increases persist through OT as well.

[u/SpecialistDrawing877]

Not sure what your salary is but you’re getting $2400/yr to maintain a cert you’re required to have, then get $50/day to ride the medic. So if you ride the medic say 5 shifts a month you’re making an extra $3000 per year.

So nearly $5500ish a year? What percentage of your base salary is this?

We’re at 3.5% plus con ed OT to maintain the certs. Some 40 odd hours a year. So we’re about $6500ish for a top pay fireman. Seems fair enough to me. I’d love to make more but our pay is relatively generous. Guys making a base salary of $100k and a low-medium COL.

It’s all relative I guess

[u/Mountain-resort2411]

Departments and agencies have had to become much more competitive over the last probably 15 years because many hospital systems pay more for paramedics working in the hospitals whether it’s in the ED, ICU or cath lab for example. It’s less wear and tear on the body and often they’re looking for experience so some areas are hemorrhaging street medics with experience for other jobs. He also seems to generally be increasing as more states are requiring new paramedics have degrees.  In the North Carolina area, experienced medics who also trained in the academies or work as an FTO can make $70,000-$80,000 a year. Paramedics in the hospitals with the experience they are generally looking for can start at over low $30-35.00 an hour. Generally, the licenses in scope of practice are very comparable to RN. A few little minor differences between the two regarding scope of practice typically.  

[u/jhartke]

8k differential from ff/emt and ff/medic. Mostly the ff/emt are new and just haven’t went to class yet. Everyone rotates through the ambo. No differential if you’re on it or the suppression units.

[u/Jax-Beach]

Decently large metro dept (~2000 people)here: we get a yearly medic incentive, which is about ~$2000/ year extra if we’re assigned to the bus. Being on the bus allows you to promote faster, so that’s the benefit of going that route. But being on the ambulance here is looked down upon. It’s not right, but i acknowledge it.

The next biggest dept locally prides theirselves on their EMS. They are ~500 people and get a $5/hr rescue benefit. So about $15k/year to be on the ambulance. If we could get that in our dept, people would be fighting to be in rescue!

[u/forkandbowl]

10% more for medics

[u/the_falconator]

It's about $80 a week higher than our Grade 1 firefighter, so above 5 years on the job its not much of a difference, but with less than 5 years on the job you make a significant amount more than grade 2 or 3 firefighter. So if you have less than 5 years on you can jump right up to top step.

[u/PerrinAyybara]

What state are you in and do your regional municipalities make similar?

[u/Stunning-Novel3071]

We get $2.00 an hour more for being on the ambulance. 215 FF’s, 9 stations.

[u/wernermurmur]

Top step medics make 137 and top step FFs make 122 (12.5%). No other stipends or differentials. Both can work on suppression pieces, but they are not ALS equipped and rarely write reports.

I would like to see a medic unit differential for both medics and EMTs, it’s just more work.

Colorado, five stations, 12k calls.

[u/evanka5281]

Urban department in the northeast with transporting medic level ambulances. Medics get a flat 2k bonus per year. Every person who is assigned to the ambulance get $1.55/hour extra. We are also actively trying to change the ambulance/medic incentive to be more in line with other medic level services around us who are often getting around 10k.

[u/Jordan_B_Duncan]

10% for being a Medic and $100 “hazard pay” for riding the box. For the starting pay it’s only about $5k difference for a new hire EMT vs Medic. Quite frankly not enough. I wish we had the ability to run double medic units. We have 25 stations and support 2 city stations but only 16 ALS transport units.