New EMS Bill Funds Life-Saving Supplies and Targets Hospital Hand-Off Delays Exceeding 30 Minutes

If you’ve ever had to call an ambulance, you know that the minutes between the emergency and the hospital are critical. The When Minutes Count for Emergency Medical Patients Act is designed to make those minutes count even more by tackling two major problems facing emergency medical services (EMS): funding critical supplies and solving the notorious ‘wall time’ delay at hospitals.

The Emergency Supply Fund: Paying for the Essentials

This bill creates a five-year pilot program called the “When Minutes Count for EMS Patients Model.” Essentially, it’s a way for Medicare to give extra money—called supplemental payments—to ground and air ambulance services. This isn't just a general funding boost; the money is strictly earmarked for stocking and using specific, life-sustaining medications and blood products. Think Epinephrine, Calcium, Fentanyl, and whole blood components. The idea is to ensure that EMS agencies don't have to worry about the high cost of keeping these critical, often perishable, supplies on hand, which can be especially tough for smaller or rural agencies. The payments cover the total cost of acquisition, storage, maintenance, transport, and even the waste involved in keeping these products ready to go (Sec. 2).

For an agency to get this funding, they have to apply and agree to a serious data commitment. They must report detailed information on the quality of care and patient outcomes, using specific codes like ICD-10 and NEMSIS data. This means if you’re a patient, the care you receive is going to be tracked to see if these extra supplies actually improve things, such as reducing mortality rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients. The goal is to prove that making this investment saves lives, especially in underserved and rural areas (Sec. 2).

Targeting the Hand-Off Headache: The Wall Time Problem

If you work in healthcare or know someone who does, you’ve heard about “wall time.” This is the frustrating, often lengthy, period when an ambulance crew is stuck waiting at the hospital Emergency Department (ED) door, unable to transfer their patient to hospital staff. Every minute spent waiting is a minute that ambulance is off the road, unable to respond to the next 911 call. This bill defines ‘wall time’ as any wait exceeding 30 minutes (Sec. 3).

To combat this, the bill requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue guidance to hospitals about their obligations to quickly accept patients from EMS. Within a year of issuing that guidance, HHS must report back to Congress on whether it actually reduced these 30-plus minute delays and recommend ways to completely eliminate the practice. This is a big deal for everyone, as it potentially gets ambulances back into service faster, improving response times across the community (Sec. 3).

The Policy Deep Dive: Studying the System

Finally, the bill mandates a comprehensive study by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) on the entire EMS payment structure. This report, due within two years, will look at several key areas that directly impact the quality of care you receive. MedPAC will evaluate if Medicare payments are adequate to cover the work of EMS Medical Directors—the doctors who provide oversight and direction—and recommend new payment models for their services. They will also analyze the severe EMS workforce shortage since 2020 and determine if higher Medicare payments could help agencies attract and retain qualified staff (Sec. 3). This is important because better-paid, well-trained staff means better care when you need it most. The report must also analyze the possibility of formally defining EMS as a “provider of services” under Medicare, which could fundamentally change how these agencies are paid and regulated.