It is Our Mission to help and care for those who cannot for themselves.
We are an educational body, with a philanthropic heartbeat.
We strive to continuously learn and improve,
While engraining ourselves in the communities we serve.
We seek to find purpose in every patient interaction,
While growing individually and collectively.
We aim to innovate and to promote positivity, always.
People: We are committed to involvement & teamwork, knowing that our people make the difference and determine our future.
Trust: We are committed to earning the respect of those we serve by promoting open lines of communication; fostering trust & partnership.
Safety: We are committed to the rigorous and continuous training of our staff, recognizing the importance of safety & comfort in each individual transport.
Service Excellence: We are committed to the highest standards of service excellence and dedicated to exceeding expectations of those we serve.
Physicians Ambulance is an Accredited Learning Center, offering numerous classes, courses and trainings to our employees free of charge! We guarantee that those who are motivated to learn and grow as professionals and as people, our clinical education team will help mold them into the very best clinicians and leaders they can be. That is our promise to you.
The individuals who gravitate to Physicians are passionate, genuine, professional and caring. Physicians operates in busy systems, and work ethic is paramount. The company is diverse, and their hiring practices center around quality employees. In the words of Jason Hess, “When we’re hiring, we aren’t hiring based on what clinical skills you already have. We are hiring based on the person you are. The ethics, the moral code you follow. We can teach you the clinical side, that’s what we specialize in here as an Accredited Learning Center, but what we can’t teach you are those intangible qualities that are already instilled in you.”
Physicians Ambulance is a privately owned, family-owned and operated Ohio Corporation, providing Emergency Medical Services, Skilled Patient Transport, Specialty Care, and Scene Standby & First Aid (Event Medicine) for 250+ healthcare and professional partners, spanning across 20 Ohio counties.
Physicians Ambulance was originally founded in 1958 by Robert and Patricia Hess of Highland Heights, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The company was founded at a time where ambulance services were created largely in concert with funeral homes, and the services were, compared to today, extremely limited (think: basic first aid and oxygen administration only). The company was successful from Day 1, as the Hess Patriarch and Matriarch committed to a strong sense of values and a belief in teamwork and respect as core foundations to their leadership styles. Strong, but loving, these two started it all, and it flourished from there.
In the late 1970s, Robert and Patricia’s two sons, Ron and Rob Jr. and daughter, Valerie, began taking over the day-to-day operations, and together, they furthered the company along as new tactics in field medicine (pre-hospital care) took root after the Vietnam War. In 1986, Ron and Robert Jr. purchased the company from their parents, the same year the company’s current leader, Jason, was born.
Between 1986 and 1994, Physicians Ambulance experienced significant growth in size and scope, through both organic development and competitor acquisitions. At one point, Physicians Ambulance was said to be the largest private ambulance service in the State of Ohio, with over 600 employees and 300 vehicles, covering the greater metropolitan areas of Cleveland and Columbus. In 1994, Ron and Rob Jr. sold the company to Rural/Metro, now Global Medical Response (GMR). Rob Jr. moved to Scottsdale to continue on in national contracting, while Ron stayed in Ohio to oversee the Ohio operations. It was through this experience that Ron realized just what an impact Physicians Ambulance had in the communities it served as a family business vs a corporate entity, and he opted to part ways with the new venture due to “cultural differences.”
He remained out of the business until his non-compete concluded, and then decided to found Physicians Ambulance once again and start it all over from scratch in 2001.
Starting over as Physicians Medical Transport Team, a name shift to represent the shifts in the industry to be more encompassing of the rise of wheelchair-bound patients needing transport (due to the improvements in care, including rehabbing, pharmaceutical treatments and focused care, such as dialysis and chemo/radiation advancements), the company was reestablished with just 3 ambulances and a wheelchair van out of a small office on Cleveland’s east side in the Warrensville Heights neighborhood. Upon announcing the relaunch, former employees signed up immediately, as there was a “clear void” in the marketplace from an employee experience and customer relations standpoint. On Day 1 of version 2.0, Physicians had 12 employees ready to make their mark again, and 10 of them had previously worked for the company prior to its sale in 1994.
Over the next eight years the company grew steadily. Several key contributors, including their Medical Director Dr. Don Spaner, who used to be the chief paramedic for the organization while he attended medical school (and is still the Medical Director today!), Chief Paramedic Scott Wildenheim, Vice President of Client Relations, Terry Finnerty and Director of Patient Accounting, Kathy Scott, worked with Ron to design and implement systems that met the needs of their clientele. By the time Ron’s second son, Jason, joined the company full-time in 2009, Physicians had grown to 8 ambulances, 4 wheelchair vans and 38 dedicated employees. The company entered its third generation with Jason’s entry post-college, at the age of 23.
Jason had worked at Physicians Medical Transport Team since high school, wearing a number of hats, including working as a Dispatcher, a Biller, and a porter, but he, himself, was not and has never been an EMT. He knew a lot about the business, but he also had a lot to learn. Coming into a well-established dynamic, his arrival was an experiment, of sorts, and one that has paid dividends for the company in the long run.
Starting off as a Hospital Coordinator at the company’s only hospital contract at the time, Southwest General, Jason began as an employee-facing “manager,” tasked with working with hospital social workers and case managers on patient evaluation, insurance authorizations, and acting as a liaison between hospital, patient, and ambulance service. In his “downtime,” he began carving out his own path in business development and future company growth, specifically by aiming to bring a better product to the skilled nursing side of the craft, and pushing for an increase in relevancy in the event medicine space. Ambitious and driven, Jason began making changes to the company in his areas of oversight that would foreshadow larger shifts of focus over the next decade.
As Jason Hess rose in the ranks of the company, he drastically cut back in divisions that were not overly profitable, while zeroing in on creating programs to support the employees in areas previously lacking. He also returned the company name to Physicians Ambulance Service, Inc. as an ode to his grandparents and due to the renewed focus on clinical superiority. He took over an already dedicated team and worked with them to shift the paradigm from quantity to quality.
Working alongside Chief Paramedic Scott Wildenheim, now of UH EMS, clinical superiority became a primary focus of the company, and it has afforded the organization a great deal of opportunities, while shaping some of the best Paramedics the State of Ohio has ever seen.
By the end of 2019, Physicians Ambulance had grown significantly, and was now home to 265 employees and around 50 vehicles, while covering 9 Ohio counties and a unique mix of customers, primarily hospitals and nursing homes, but also sports teams and specialty care organizations. On January 1, 2020, Jason Hess was named President of Physicians Ambulance.
Today, Physicians Ambulance has over 330 employees and nearly 80 vehicles, while covering almost 20 Ohio counties. The company does not have any specifically designed growth patterns, but rather it seeks to grow into areas that are in need of their service delivery models, and where those delivery models can be deployed successfully with partnerships built on mutual respect and a focus on improving the healthcare continuum of care. That certainly does not fit every geographical area or every potential client seeking a contract, but by sticking to their parameters, Physicians is able to almost guarantee a level of success never seen before with private ambulance.
The philosophy really is simple. Take care of your employees, and they will take care of your business. Give your employees the best equipment, infinite resources and the trust and compassion to do the job at an extremely high level, and you will rarely be disappointed.
Healthcare is a challenging space, and emergency medical transport/ medical transportation is in a crisis in the United States right now… but great companies find a way to perceiver, to win, and it starts with leading with a strong sense of purpose, and everything else follows.
Physicians Ambulance continues to grow, having recently opened up in Grove City, Ohio (Greater Columbus Area), bringing their successful programs to those Paramedics, AEMTs, EMTs and support staff that want their work-life to mirror their personal beliefs, and be guided by a great sense of purpose.
