Say Goodbye To The Metrocare Name-Say Hello To Transcare

[x635 4,066]

Interesting Article. One thing mentioned is that due to the black eye Zackheim gave Metrocare, all Metrocare ambulances are going to be repainted to the Transcare paint scheme and labeling.

Ambulances in combat

TransCare battles union forces, unhealthy ties

 

By Gale Scott

Published on May 24, 2004

 

  CARING ENOUGH TO SEND THE VERY BEST: TransCare's Matthew Harrison is eliminating all vestiges of scandal-tainted MetroCare, which his firm acquired in 1999. Its founder has resigned and its vehicles have been rebranded. 

 

The 80-year-old heart attack victim was supine in his underwear on the living room floor of his Morningside Heights walkup. TransCare Ambulance paramedic Barry Diamond needed another pair of hands.

He passed a bag of saline solution connected to an IV line inserted in the patient's neck to a tall gray-haired man, saying, "Matt, could you hold this?"

So it was that Matthew Harrison, chief executive of TransCare and a bigwig at Hampshire Equity Partners, came to spend the next half hour quietly holding an IV bag over his head. It was part of a failed attempt at saving a stranger's life.

He is having more success with TransCare, a $100 million firm funded by Hampshire Equity. It is the largest of several companies that have contracts with private hospitals to operate ambulances as part of the city's 911 emergency system. It also appears to be the only for-profit company to have this business.

Under Mr. Harrison's leadership, TransCare has seen revenues grow by about 40% since it entered the New York market with the 1999 acquisition of MetroCare Ambulance. The CEO says the privately held company, which relocated to Brooklyn after the deal, is profitable.

At the time of the purchase, the terms of which were not disclosed, TransCare had 800 employees and MetroCare had 300. Payroll for the company, which operates in three states, has since grown to 2,000 employees.

National player

That doesn't put TransCare in the same league as giant American Medical Response, a $1 billion Greenwood Village, Colo., company with 18,500 employees across the country, or Rural/Metro, a privately held Scottsdale, Ariz., firm with 9,000 employees. But it could make TransCare a national player, says Joseph Fitch, president of Fitch & Associates, a Missouri consulting firm.

There are some hurdles to overcome first, however.

The city's EMS union, Local 2507 of District Council 37, is fighting the privatization of the 911 system.

TransCare is also struggling with an image problem that it acquired along with MetroCare. That company's founder, Steven Zakheim, stayed on as an executive following the purchase. But he resigned last month in the wake of criminal charges for making illegal campaign contributions, and civil charges that the company racked up $34 million in fraudulent Medicare bills. He also recently settled a sexual harassment case brought by a group of female MetroCare employees.

Mr. Harrison appears qualified to take on both of his company's dilemmas. He's clearly got the leadership skills and the enthusiasm, and he has shown that he can remain calm under fire.

A West Pointer who became an Army lieutenant colonel and served two tours in Vietnam, he believes in getting to know the troops and understanding what they're up against. Every couple of weeks, he dons blue workman's pants and a matching shirt and rides in the ambulances as an observer.

"I'm an adrenaline junkie," he says, "and the truth is, I'm falling in love with this job."

He also knows a thing or two about surviving companies with unsavory reputations. His first civilian job was an executive position at WedTech. Four months after Mr. Harrison was hired, the Bronx defense contracting firm started to collapse in the spectacular bribery scandal that ended the careers of Rep. Mario Biaggi and Attorney General Edwin Meese. Mr. Harrison emerged unscathed, his integrity intact.

He's now practicing damage control at TransCare. After Mr. Zakheim resigned from the company, Mr. Harrison immediately ordered workers to start repainting the 225 ambulances in the MetroCare fleet with TransCare's dark-green-and-gray logo. The next step was making the rounds to City Council members, shoring up TransCare's image by touting it as a company that employs thousands of workers and saves lives.

MetroCare, Mr. Harrison says, was no WedTech. "WedTech was a Ponzi scheme; it was all fraud," he observes. He argues that MetroCare is a solid company that has a bright future, despite Mr. Zakheim's legal difficulties.

"Even if everything Steve Zakheim is accused of doing turns out to be true, it all happened before we took over," he says.

TransCare bought MetroCare's assets, not its potential legal liabilities. Still, the ambulance business can be tricky, says consultant Mr. Fitch, in part because there's no way to know immediately if patients have the insurance to pay for the care. While municipal services tend to bill a flat fee regardless of whether the patient is insured, hospital ambulance services may not.

"We call it spilling the drug box," says Mr. Fitch, referring to add-ons to bills that can inflate them to more than $1,000--well beyond the $150 to $250 that Medicare covers.

That might help explain why many private hospitals in New York have chosen to run ambulance services, says Patrick Bahnken, president of EMS Local 2507. Mr. Bahnken, a former Marine who zealously fights for his members, has sued the city, saying that the Giuliani administration violated the City Charter in allowing hospitals to hire nonunion ambulance service subcontractors to work in the 911 system.

Selective servicing

About 42% of the city's 911 ambulance tours are run by hospitals or their subcontractors. Among the Manhattan hospitals that TransCare serves are Mount Sinai Hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center and North General Hospital.

Mr. Bahnken claims that the subcontracting process allocates to private firms those neighborhoods with the richest and most heavily insured residents. That leaves the emergencies of the poor in remote corners of the boroughs to the city's crews.

Mr. Harrison counters that his company save lives, does not inflate bills and makes money simply because it is more efficient. He's sorry that TransCare's employee benefits will never match those offered by the city--a package that Mr. Bahnken estimates adds $20,000 a year to the cost of paying a full-time EMS worker. But he has to pay attention to the bottom line.

"I'm a believer in privatization. As the head of a private company, I'm incentivized differently than the city," says Mr. Harrison.

He says that the union's suit is a nuisance; he is confident of victory.

"I'm not the kind of Vietnam vet who puts on jungle fatigues and goes to the Wall and cries," says Mr. Harrison, "but I know what it's like on the front lines."

[N1Medic 69]

So, if they are changing their name, do all their contracts have to be rebid?

[Guest x901]

they shouldn't have to rebid the contracts as the contracts are with TRANSCARE to start with. 'Metrocare' ishas been the operating name for TRANSCARE in the NYC area. So as it is really just a name change and still the same company, nothing is going to change contact wise (except when they are getting kicked outa places IE the entire NY Presbyterian contact)

[WAS967 97]

I believe the White Plains contract is currently under the old name "Abbey Richmond" and is why there are still a handful of lances with the Abbey name on them around WP. It is supposedly in the contract that they have to be labeled as such.

[RWC130 594]

Looks like the ball is rolling.... Today 6/10 in the Bronx I saw what once was a Metrocare Supervisor truck now lettered "TRANSCARE"

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Huh, and I thought that article would have mentioned "Steve the Hat."

A name change isn't going to fix that many problems...