Rural/Metro Ambulance

[cumcoemt84]

I was thanking about going to work for Rural/Metro. Is there some people here that has has some contact with them. Are they a good service and good to there people

[Dustdevil]

That's sort of like asking if WalMart is a good place to work. Every store is different. Same thing applies to RM. Each operation is only as good as the people running it locally. And, of course, that is also going to be dependent upon the city you are serving and their contractual requirements, etc... Working for RM in a city where you do nothing but run nursing home transfers and take the Fire Department's rejects sucks, no matter how good management is. Working for RM in a city where you are primary 911 sucks if your management are arseholes. You simply can't generalise the answer to this question and it have any relevance.

That said, there are certainly very real benefits to working for a large, nationwide provider like RM. Mobility is among the bigger benefits. And, of course, larger companies tend to have more professional standards in many ways. They have people who do nothing but continually work on medical education, safety, benefits, equipment standards, etc.... Joe's ambulance service has Joe making the rules, and his fat wife administrating all of the above programs. On the other hand, Joe is also more likely to take a personal interest in you and your success than an RM CEO in a big expensive office 5000 miles away from you.

There's good and bad to all providers. Overall, RM is a very good company. But your local RM operation may be shite.

[dlarkin]

DustDevil is right, it really matters how the local management treats you. I currently work for Rural/Metro in the Seattle area as a Critical Care Transport Nurse. I have also worked for King County Ambulance (now absorbed by AMR) and Shepard Ambulance (also now AMR). The first company was owned by a couple of guys and while we were treated well the equipment left a lot to be desired. We did a lot of work on the rigs ourselves. When I started at Shepard it was still owned by a single guy and he treated us very well. I think we were the highest paid ambulance company in the nation for a while. We ran hard (29 calls a shift) but we had fun. It was bought out by LifeFleet and became corporate but still the same local supervisors were there. I don't know how it is now with AMR running it.

Rural/Metro seems to be pretty good. Of course the bottom line will always rule in any private (and most public) EMS services. We have pretty good equipment. Some of our rigs have over 300,000 miles on them but we have two full time mechanics and any little rattle is looked at right away. We have a couple of new ambulances roll in each month and get sent out to the fleet. The pay is fair for EMS work. We will never get rich doing it but you find a much easier job either. What do I really do for work after all? I move a couple of people and lift the wheels a few times a day!

R/M is a nationwide company and the mobility part is correct. One of our Paramedics just transferred to Florida and keeps all seniority, etc. R/M started as a private fire department and we still have fire departments around the country. Some cities find it easier to just contract out the fire department. So if you ever want to move to the fire service you just transfer with the same company.

[Nate]

Rural Metro use to be huge in Texas. They were in Bastrop, Dallas, and Galveston County (some of their larger areas). They ended up pulling out contract by contract because they were getting caught left and right pulling 911 trucks to run transfers. Then they were having trouble making a profit because they couldn't turn enough transfers to pay the bills for the 911 trucks.

RM has however had issues with one major factor. They have a lot of firefighters up top and they don't always see eye to eye with the EMS guys. Like Dustdevil has said, every branch is going to be different from the others.

[cumcoemt84]

sorry

[Ace844]

So dose fire/rescue help in hireing. I have about 140 fire traning hrs. But I thank you for all your input.

SO if someday I wount to move I could just transferre within RM

I think they have a minimum cognitive ability requirement...Like say the ability to speak and spell above the 2nd grade, yeah...Maybe when you make it all the way to 10th grade level.. :roll: they may have something for ya!

[whit72]

cumcoemt84 wrote:

So dose fire/rescue help in hireing. I have about 140 fire traning hrs. But I thank you for all your input.

SO if someday I wount to move I could just transferre within RM

Your kidding me.......right

[weasel 108]

So dose fire/rescue help in hireing. I have about 140 fire traning hrs. But I thank you for all your input.

SO if someday I wount to move I could just transferre within RM

:shock: :shock: wtf ?

[Scaramedic]

So dose fire/rescue help in hireing. I have about 140 fire traning hrs. But I thank you for all your input.

SO if someday I wount to move I could just transferre within RM

:stop: Everyone calm down, luckily I speak Kentuckian.

I believe he was trying to say..

"Would training in Fire & Rescue be considered positive in regards to a lad getting a job with Rural Metro? I currently have 140 hours of Fire & Rescue training obtained through matriculation at various learning academies. I would also like to give my personal regards to all of the posters who were kind enough to post answers to my earlier query. One last question Lads, what if I wanted to transfer within the Rural Metro Cooperation to another location, would that be possible?"

Peace,

Marty

:joker:

[Dustdevil]

Again, it will be dependent upon where you work. If you go to a RM operation that is not a fire service, I wouldn't go mouthing off about your fire "training" because they are likely to not be impressed by it. I know I personally usually won't hire anybody with fire training in an EMS operation because they are usually not going to stay with me long term. They're just looking for something to tide them over til they get a fire job.