User Guide for the Cost Data Collection Instrument

Total Annual Compensation 

Regardless of category, when reporting total annual compensation, you will include salary/wages, benefits  (healthcare, PTO, retirement, life insurance, and stipends), overtime, training time, callback & standby pay.    Importantly, if one or more components of compensation costs are paid by another organization with which you  have a business relationship, e.g. a municipality that you serve,  you will need to obtain and include these costs . If  the other organization is only able to provide total costs, e.g. total benefits costs across all staff, you will need to  allocate to labor categories based on salary or wages across labor categories.    For example, if total benefits were $60,000, and 1/3 rd  of EMT/response staff salary and wages was for EMT‐B  and 2/3 rd  was for EMT‐ P, then $20,000 would contribute to EMT‐B and $40,000 would contribute to EMT‐P.  

Total Annual Hours  

Include only those staff whose EMT roles are with your agency.  If a staff member is employed as an EMT with  your agency but a firefighter with another agency, do not include those firefighter hours.  Also, in this section,  you will include total hours for staff for whom only some time was spent on EMS.  For example, you have a paid  firefighter/EMT who worked 2,000 hours, though not all hours were for EMS.  Nonetheless, report 2,000 hours. 

Hours Worked Annually (unrelated to ground ambulance or fire/police duties) 

For staff with shared roles, you will track the hours worked annually that were not related to EMT/response  activities or fire/police activities.  Such responsibilities could include: air ambulance, working in a clinic,  community paramedicine, community outreach, etc.  Here, you will capture the share of hours, not the total.   

Medical Director 

If your agency contracts with a medical director rather than employing directly, you will need to track the total  compensation for medical direction services that your agency paid, not the value of the medical director’s time 

General Item 

Of the staff who were partly or entirely related to your ground ambulance operation, you will need to track  whether one or more individuals devoted a total of at least half time (1,000 hours annually or approximately 20  hours per week) to each of the following.  Note: This would not include individuals whose services were part of  an outside contracted service. 

 Billing   Data analysis   Training   Medical quality assurance 

Volunteer Compensation 

You will need to report the total dollars spent if your agency provided stipends, honoraria, benefits and/or other  compensation for volunteers, regardless if EMT/response, administration/facilities, or medical director.

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