KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
WHAT "MEDICAL COVERAGE" ACTUALLY MEANS
LIFETECH EMS
PROFESSIONAL COMPANY EMPLOYEES
Company-provided, professional-grade equipment and supplies — including AEDs, oxygen, and BLS medications — on every shift.
A fully insured company carrying up to $10M in General Liability and $5M in Medical Professional Liability.
W-2 employees and a medical director, carefully recruited and extensively background-checked.
WORTH ASKING ABOUT
TYPICAL CONTRACTOR COVERAGE
Individual responders are expected to source their own gear -- we've heard of "splints" being improvised from rolled-up magazines.
Coverage is typically a $1M individual policy from an online provider, with general liability sometimes optional.
Nearly everyone in this model is a 1099 contractor -- no matter what the website refers to them as or what's on their shirt.
WHY IT MATTERS
THE FINE PRINT ADMINISTRATORS AND PARENTS DON'T USUALLY SEE
EMT, NOT EMR
If an event says it has "medics" on site, families and administrators have every right to expect quality equipment and trained personnel -- not a roll of the dice based on what an individual responder could afford. At minimum, that means at least an EMT-level responder (not EMR) explicitly operating at an EMT level under a employee (not volunteer advisor) Medical Director's direct authority.
LIABILITY EXPOSURE
Contractor-based coverage stacks your liability on top of the contractor's own policy limits, the staffing firm's vicarious liability, and possible gaps in indemnification. If a claim is ever filed, sorting out who's responsible becomes its own ordeal -- including your organization's potential exposure if the contractor is injured on-site, since they don't carry Workers' Compensation.
EMPLOYMENT LAW
The IRS is clear: if an organization directs when, where, and how someone performs their work, that person should be a W-2 employee -- not a 1099 contractor. Every member of LifeTech's staff is a W-2 employee.