The emergency medical services company owned by the former East Texas Medical Center has a contract to be the region’s exclusive ambulance provider through 2040.

ETMC EMS, now called UT Health East Texas EMS, signed a contract with officials from Smith County and the city of Tyler in 2015 that gave the company market control for another 25 years.

The contract was an extension on a previous five-year contract signed in 1992 that gave ETMC EMS exclusive control over the ambulance market in the city of Tyler and the majority of Smith County. That contract offered the company one-year extensions.

It’s not clear on what other occasions the contract was extended and what circumstances led to the 25-year contract for 2040. Smith County and the city of Tyler have both cited policies in the past not to comment on pending litigation.

The Tyler Morning Telegraph obtained the contract extension from the city of Tyler through a request under the Texas Public Information Act after a competing ambulance company, Champion EMS, sued ETMC EMS in the 241st District Court for allegedly creating an illegal monopoly.

Champion EMS, which is owned by the Christus Trinity Mother Frances Health System, filed the suit in April as a counterclaim to a suit ETMC EMS brought against it in May 2017 claiming Champion was infringing on the ETMC EMS contract for market control.

Champion’s suit alleges that Smith County and the city of Tyler are not holding ETMC EMS to provisions in the original contract from 1992. 

For the city of Tyler, the extension was signed by City Clerk Cassandra Brager, City Manager Ed Broussard and City Attorney Deborah Pullum, after the mayor and City Council approved the item at a meeting.

For Smith County, the extension was signed by County Clerk Karen Phillips, former County Judge Joel Baker and Assistant District Attorney Phillip Smith after the Smith County Commissioners Court approved the item at a meeting.

Together, the city of Tyler and Smith County have an entity called Smith County EMS Administrative Agency. The city and county created the entity in the 1990s as part of the agreement, and re-created the agency in the 2015 updates. The entity operates under an interlocal agreement, according to the contract.

The current Smith County EMS Administrative Agency has four members: the mayor of Tyler, the Smith County judge, one member of the Tyler City Council and one member of the Smith County Commissioners Court. Additionally, the Tyler city manager is the administrator of the agency.

Under the contract, the agency retains the right to put the contract back out to bid once the term of the contract expires in 2040. The contract then outlines criteria for the agency to send the contract out to bid, and criteria that bidders must meet if the competitive process is used.

“Eligible bidders must be then currently providing substantially similar or better paramedic services, within substantially similar or superior standards of response time reliability, to a contiguous service population that is not less than two-thirds the population of the then-current ‘contract service area,’” the contract says.

Among its other provisions, the contract extension requires the city of Tyler and Smith County to spend up to $40,000 per year administering the agency. The money goes into an account administered by the city of Tyler called the EMS Administrative fund, according to the contract.

Copies of the original contract and the extension are available at TylerPaper.com.

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