Uber for urgent care: New venture aims to ease burden on EMS, emergency rooms
For years, Ben Swig and other paramedics saw it all the time: People would call 911, not because they were between life and death, but because their prescriptions needed refilling and they couldn’t get a doctor on the phone. Now, Swig and his business partner, Justin Dangel, hope to break what Swig calls the “ambulance-hospital” cycle. With Ready Responders, a service they’re launching in mid-June, a New Orleanian who needs a doctor but doesn’t have an emergency will be able to call the pair’s start-up, rather than an ambulance. A trained paramedic will head to the scene in his private vehicle, assess the patient and call a doctor for further review. “It’s maybe 10 percent or less of callers that actually need the lights and sirens,” said Swig, a former New Orleans EMS paramedic. “They don’t need to spend a lot of money, or wait hours and hours. They can be treated in their home.”
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