EMS abuse: The Ride to get High

What the caller, and only the caller, knows is that his chest is not throbbing in pain. Actually, his chest is fine. What he has done is just reserve his personal medical limousine for transport to the head of the line at the area emergency room — an emergency room that may unknowingly feed his current prescription drug addiction. The caller also knows that Lawrence County taxpayers are going to pick up the dime for the entire trip. Not a single cent is coming out of his pocket. He does not have insurance and has no intention of paying for the trip.
The only thing the caller is sure of is the chances of him “scoring” depends on acting skills, choosing the right hospital and if the doctor he is assigned to is willing to buy his story.

EMS cannot come soon enough for this prescription drug addict.

Calls like this are not fiction or random acts. Actually, abuse of the area ambulance companies, including Lawrence County-funded Southeast Ohio Emergency Medical Services, are becoming an ever-growing nuisance.

So much so, statistics indicate that nearly 50 percent of calls that come into SEOEMS’ Ironton station are not true emergencies.

Many are emergency calls for ailments such as ingrown toenails, colds and assistance getting out of bed in the morning.

But another chunk of the non-emergency calls SEOEMS responds to comes from an underground society of prescription drug addicts who know how to beat the system and Lawrence County taxpayers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

Here is their story.