A permanent, on-site medical center, equipped as well as a full-on paramedic ambulance, and staffed by paramedics with the authority to call in ambulances or helicopters that’s Willow Springs International Motorsports Park owner Bill Huth’s plan for the future. Upset over recent fee increases for standby ambulance service at the track, Huth told Roadracingworld.com that he intends to build his own urgent care facility to provide care for injured racers, spectators and visitors to the track facility. The center will be staffed by paramedics who will be authorized to call for additional medical services, up to and including helicopter life flights to local hospitals in cases of severe injury. “I want a place where they can re-start the heart, the stuff that a paramedic can do in an ambulance,” Huth says. “Whatever they can do in a paramedic ambulance, that’s what I want to have available. That’s what I really want to have. It’s someplace that they can take people who get hurt including the people who come to the track and take care of them without having to go to the hospital. A lot of times, you get to the hospital, and they just park you in the hallway.” Huth was spurred to pursue his own on-site medical facility after the local ambulance provider raised the fees it charged for standing by during track events. Because of Kern County ordinances, Hall Ambulance has the exclusive right to serve that region of the county. The exclusive service area contract is a common method that governments use to ensure that remote or rural areas receive ambulance services. “The county has selected one ambulance carrier to provide service in that area without competition, but in return, they have to provide service to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay,” says Ross Elliott, Director, County of Kern Emergency Medical Services Department. “The county sets the rates. The reason we set it up this way is because it’s not there’s not a lot of volume. It’s not lucrative. There would not be an ambulance service in every community. It’s the only way the county has to make sure that every community has ambulance service.” In exchange for that right to exclusive service for the area, the ambulance company agrees to have its maximum rates capped. Kern County goes through a complex process that includes an analysis of the ambulance company’s expenses, revenues, comparisons of rates with similar market service areas, etc., to determine how much the ambulance service will be allowed to charge. Hall Ambulance, Elliott says, won a competitive bid for service in the Rosamond area, and even after recent rate increases, its maximum standby rate of $109 per hour for a Basic Life Support ambulance and $143 per hour for an Advanced Life Support ambulance is lower than the maximum rate for any other ambulance provider in Kern County, where Willow Springs is located.