JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. — Three months after New Chapel EMS stopped being the primary 911 dispatch in Clark County, wait times for an ambulance are improving.
"We have had a lot of people post online about quick response times or great care. We've also heard a lot from the fire/police departments around here that are shocked about how quick we're getting to the scenes," Josh Keywood said, director of operations for Heartland Ambulance Service.
Clark County brought in Heartland Ambulance on Aug. 1 to stop persistent paramedic staffing issues and slow response times at New Chapel EMS. New Chapel provided two ambulances for the month of August, but fully stopped providing 911 service on Sept. 1.
Heartland is a nationwide private company that operates in Texas, Florida and Indiana. They are headquartered in Muncie, Ind., but many of their most profitable operations are in the south and southwest.
Keywood said they have 32 employees in Clark County right now. They have been operating on a three-month, and now a one-month extension. The employees are all staying at a hotel in Clarksville.
"We do give them the option every 30 days to change out with a different staff member, if they're ready to go home," Keywood said. "But a lot of them have been here from the beginning and want to keep going."
Heartland Ambulance improved the average response time (from dispatch to on-scene) from 12:54 in September 2023 to 9:57 in 2024. They still have had some average response times over 20 minutes in more rural parts of the county.
Keywood says they've been able to improve response times because they stage ambulances at strategic positions along the I-65 corridor, and also because they're the first private provider in Clark County history to have one of their employees at the county dispatch center 24/7.
New Chapel EMS has rebranded and significantly downsized after its former CEO Jamey Noel left the picture. Noel was just sentenced to 12 years in prison and 3 years probation in part for stealing over $3 million from New Chapel EMS from 2018 to 2023.
New Chapel is now operating as "Phoenix Ambulance" and only doing non-emergency transports with roughly three ambulances.
"A lot of times we're dealing with older patients, or we're dealing with patients who are being transported following procedures in non-critical situations," S. Coy Travis said, a spokesperson for Phoenix.
When Phoenix filed its new paperwork with the Indiana Secretary of State's Office, it still filed its official business name as "Utica Township Volunteer Fire Fighters Association." The organization is slated to get $2.8 million in restitution from Jamey Noel.
"It's no secret that the New Chapel name in large part is tied to the previous leadership of the company; he's not here anymore," Travis said.
Phoenix is no longer working out of New Chapel's former headquarters at 5820 Utica Pike. The company has rented space at a large warehouse with a loading dock in Clarksville.
The former headquarters at 5820 Utica Pike still has over a dozen ambulances on it, with the New Chapel logo removed. No one is working in it, and Jeffersonville Fire will take over the building in the near future, once property ownership is figured out in a civil lawsuit.
Heartland is charging Clark County over $200,000 per month, whereas New Chapel only charged $87,000. President of the Clark County Commissioners Brian Glover said they will have a joint meeting with the Clark County Council on Nov. 18 to discuss how to move forward.
Heartland's one-month extension, which instructed them to go up to eight ambulances instead of seven, will end on Nov. 21.
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