7.25.2023 City Council - Committee on Ordinances & Legislation

my boys

thank you many young ordinance and legislation will now come to order Madam clerk will you please call the roll here here here here uh just for the record Council counselor Liberty will not be here due to a family emergency so I just want to share that with everybody pursuant to the open meeting law any person may make an audio a video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium

attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledgeable and permissible first item on the agenda is citizen input is there any citizen input seeing none item number two is the minutes from May 23rd 2023. motion to approve second motion to approve was made in second in discussion seeing none all those in favor

aye opposed so vote in motion carries unanimously item number three is a proposed ordinance traffic handicap parking was referred to the committee on June 27 2023 and July 18th 2023 it's for 3rd Street East Side 192 feet south of Morgan Street Cambridge Street South Side 262 feet west of Mont Street Division Street North Side 60 feet east of Grant Street Eddie Street West Side 267 feet south of

Locust Street Hunter Street East Side 127 feet south of Hope Street June Street East Side 153 feet south of Walnut Street Osborne Street North Side 156 feet east of Arpin Street Palmer Street North Side 356 feet east of South Main Street South Beach Street West Side 237 feet south of Middle Street Summerfield Street South Side 177 feet west of Robeson Street and then Woodstock Street West Side 63

feet north of dwelly street is there a motion for emergency Preamble motion still made motion was made a second roll call yes yes is there a motion to doctor all readings motion made motion was made is there a second second discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed so vote of motion carries item number four is proposed ordinance traffic miscellaneous was referred to us May 30th June 27th and July 18th

this is for a one-way Street Thompson Street we've got parking prohibited on Thompson Street West Side 73 feet south of Brownell Street for a distance of 25 feet and then Thompson Street West Side 107 feet north of President Ave for the distance of 36 feet Northerly we've got Section 3 15-minute parking only Eastern Ave West Side 73 feet north of County Street for a distance of 40

feet Northerly from 7 A.M to 11 p.m all days we've got section four handicap parking removals on 2nd Street Alden Street Bradford Ave Broadway Brunell Street Buffington Street Cass Street Eastern Ave Lewis Street North Main Street South Main Street and Whipple Street is there a motion motion to pass through first reading uh motion to pass their first reading was made by Council proposals there a second second second

by Council Dion discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries unanimously item number five is the discussion uh discuss the creation of a community medicine scheduling coordinator position within the Emergency Medical Service Department which was referred to the committee on June 27th I'll ask the appropriate Administration to come down for discussion

the 22nd

good evening how are you good how are you so can I just ask for a brief description of what the positions for the intent and then I'll open it up to any questions that folks may have sure so the the position is kind of I'm sorry can we just State our names and positions for the record yeah uh cheap EMS

so the position is going to be it's relative to a lot of mobile Integrated Health division that we have within EMS right now so she will basically be scheduling all the transfer not emergency uh calls during the day for the trucks for transports and the scheduled Telehealth visits that will be uh coming up hopefully by Fall so basically we'll be getting doctors offices calling in they'll say I

need to go do a visit for Mary Jones at 11 P 11 A.M tomorrow morning I should do all that scheduling and then she'll get that scheduling out to the people that are actually going to do the visits which we already have in place okay is it questions Council Washington um who's going to be doing the visit sir is it is this the person just scheduling the visits for the doctor's office yeah

so the doctor's office would physically call us we would schedule them through her and then she would give the information out to our paramedics that are already assigned to that unit that are already doing safety checks uh they're just not doing the Telehealth at this point but we do do safety checks on the Bristol all those Grant and we get reimbursed for those so basically it's Med

consolidation if they need Bristol Elders Meals on Wheels any help they need we go into the homes and we get them that they need right now so no you're not billing the insurance companies at this point for these visits no we get reimbursed on the grant so we just submit our cost to the grant and we get reimbursed on that and are you looking long-term to build for insurance companies yes so so basically right now

there's there's a T3 program out Nationwide that's they're actually Medicare is actually getting rid of that um and they're going to let it go so medic basically you need Medicare Medicaid reimbursement insurance reimbursements but we found a way that you can become a community partner with a hospital group whether it's Stuart South Coast Primary Care so we would be a community partner they would bill for

the service and then we would charge the partner for fee for our service so we would actually get paid through the hospital not through the insurance companies yeah so I'm pretty familiar with this and I think it's like like a a great opportunity so this position then is a preface to doing that long term would be helping to do that long term yes so if you were doing a Telehealth visit the

paramedic in the home could be your Hands-On so you could say are they meds in order other meds reconciling do they need to have an EKG are they having chest pain are they having shortness of breath so you can the physician can do the Telehealth visit but you can be their actual hands so that because the elderly are having difficulty getting transportation from home to doctors offices and backs that seems to

be a big barrier so Telehealth seems to be the way of the future for people to try to treat in their residence yeah I think that's right all right that's the last question I got thank you I yield Council Dion so the individual doing the scheduling does not go out to the houses no they're simply they're just going to handle the scheduling and coordinate the Medics correct

correct um which Deputy thoughts has taken on until we can get this position in place so that'll be another aspect of her job uh description is to do all the billing for the non-emergency trucks which averages I think about 2500 calls a year she'll be filling out those calls which is more in depth than a 911 call for service for billing when it comes to Medicare on Blue Cross it's a little

more in depth to uh bill out with the help a deputy wants you'll be assisting on that also so who will determine is it the doctor's office that will determine which of their patients need this additional help yes it does so it'll be up to the doctor's office to schedule the patient and let us know what addresses and What patients they want us to see Mr cynicism go to the hospital within 30 days of

discharge the hospital doesn't get reimbursed so the they want to encourage people to stay in their homes because if the patient gets free admitted within that 30 days the hospital doesn't get reimbursed for that admission so therefore it caused a huge deficit on the facility side so sometimes people go back just because they need somebody to encourage them they just need somebody to say well you

don't have the temperature your EKG is fine so that's where we would come in for that kind of thing and you feel that you have the Manpower for this because I know that EMS is incredibly busy it's non-stop uh redo we already have the the people in place to do the job which is called the ms7 squad 12 you might have heard Squad 12. they're out there right now they supervise and Non-Emergency trucks they're paramedics

so if we have two basic EMTs under the medic program that we have on the truck and it's an ALS Advanced call coming out of St Anne's going to Rhode Island Hospital they'll jump in the truck to do the call with them that's what they're currently doing now once the visits stop ticking up then we might have to reevaluate and look I know during the day we can use staff Personnel for those transfers and at night

the visits kind of sway down and that person is on 24 hours seven days a week so at night they would revert back to backing up the trucks so these people are already in place to do the visits where it's one person per shift if it did grow to where we needed more personnel and obviously we'd come down to uh to go to the administration come down to the council and we

ask for for more positions if it was needed I'm hoping that does happen but for now we do have the people to get the program started hmm I feel like we're um becoming part of the doctor's office and and and uh stepping in obviously it's a new role it's uh it is it's Nationwide and if you look down towards like California or Texas and Florida they've been doing this for 15 years this is nothing new

it's new for the Northeast but around the country this is it's nothing new for them and we've gotten a lot of uh policies and ideas from these companies that already do it EMS departments that do it okay with that I yield for now thank you um so obviously the main and I was looking at the job description so the main job function is the scheduling of the actual runs right getting that awesome

so we have currently have two trucks and obscenes course they have a discharge and seniors calls and they have a long distance it's her it's her you need somebody that can logistically who has EMS knowledge to say okay it's going to take them this long to do this and come back it's not somebody it has to have somebody that has to have some sort of basis to know whether they need

ALS or they need BLS or and what are we getting um for reimbursement I know you said the grants reimbursing us is it is it Medicaid Medicare non-transport side me not okay so what what is that in terms of that's for the end that's the that's the ambulance transfers yeah so that's Medicaid MassHealth Medicare and Blue Cross types whatever it may be the grant is only for the safety visits yeah first

of all this that's it okay so but the grant itself so we're charging man hours or is it yeah like is it actual hours or is it is it a rate that's been established two hours promotional uh we're doing uh some things for the people fire extinguishers under the sink the pill the Monday through Friday pill containers things to try to get them to a good place so that's what they're going to cover so

with this grant cover this grant would cover obviously some of the salary associated with this individual so we are currently working on another Grant not the first of all this grant it's and I apologize Captain Silver's day off he was going to be here um that would possibly cover some of the salaries under the program that was starting under the Telehealth stuff as I get that information I can you have them

email you that information so you have some knowledge of it and then the only other question I have is the um salary or the rates that we have here is that bi-weekly or is that a based on the basic EMT salary bi-weekly though bi-weekly I just want to double check that that's all any further questions is there a motion motion to pass through first reading well surpass proof frustrating was made

by Council Washington is there a second second by Council proposal discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed so voted motion carries unanimously uh thank you folks item number 56 is a proposed ordinance renaming the committee on Human Services Health Youth and Elder Affairs to the committee on Human Service Health youth Elder and Veterans Affairs is there a motion or a discussion

past your first reading motion and pass through frustrating was made by Council proposal second by Council Washington discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed supportive motion carries unanimously promotion to adjourn motion to adjourn uh all those a favor aye opposed so voted motion carries committee on ordinance of legislation is now with drugs please