UPDATE: Pafford acquires Baptist Health ambulance service in Arkadelphia; paramedics offered to stay on board -

This post was updated on 4/3/25

By JOEL PHELPS | arkadelphian.com

ARKADELPHIA, Arkansas — Tensions between Baptist Health medics and Pafford Medical Services were eased Thursday afternoon when Pafford executives offered each medic to stay on with the company. A sale by Baptist to Pafford was made official just ahead of a meeting informing medics of the sale.

In a sit-down interview later with The Arkadelphian, Pafford CEO Jamie Pafford-Gresham said most of the Baptist crew agreed to climb aboard, and others were considering the option.

“I’m excited to have acquired the ambulance service from Baptist,” Pafford-Gresham said. “Baptist has done a wonderful job for this community for over 30 years, and their decision to exit the market has allowed Pafford to come in and assist with the ambulance service, and we’re excited about that. We believe that we’re a very robust company that’s at the forefront of what’s going on in medical services around the country. We’re well-connected and we’re a driven company that wants to take care of our people first, and if we take care of our people they’re going to do a good job of taking care of the people they serve.”

Pafford-Gresham didn’t disclose the dollar figure of the purchase, which was a transaction between two private companies.

Asked what Clark County residents will notice once Pafford takes the helm of the local ambulance service, COO Clay Hobbs said there will be newer ambulances on the ground, equipped with upgraded equipment such as cardiac monitors and ventilators. The Bismarck station, previously moved to a 12-hour day operation, will again be stationed 24/7.

There will be at least three ambulances stationed in the county, and Pafford said it will be monitoring whether to add other ambulances. Hobbs said the Hope-based company’s existing footprint in the region will mean more coverage in the event of disasters.

County residents, Pafford-Gresham said, will have the option of enrolling in a $60/month membership program to help mitigate out-of-pocket expenses incurred by ambulance transports.

Pafford-Gresham addressed previous news reports of her company’s fines to the Department of Health and Human Services, clarifying that it was a self-reported issue following an internal audit of a paramedic who lied about being licensed during a Pafford acquisition of another ambulance service. “Today every person that works for my company has been cleared with the Office of Inspector General,” she said. “We have a robust education department and HR department that keeps up with all that.”

She also pointed out that her address earlier this week to the Hot Springs City Board of Directors wasn’t to vie for a contract there, but rather to stand up for a “process that was flawed,” she said, referring to the system governing boards use to grade ambulance services.

The original article, with updated responses from county Judge Troy Tucker, is below:

Concerns rise over likely Pafford EMS acquisition of Baptist ambulance service

ARKADELPHIA, Arkansas — Despite outcry on social media to keep Clark County’s ambulance service local, Baptist Health has reportedly chosen Pafford EMS to take the wheel of its ambulance fleet. Though a decision had not yet been officially announced at the time of this writing Thursday, all indications point to the Hope-based Pafford EMS as the buyer in an undisclosed deal with Baptist.

An internal text message was leaked to The Arkadelphian: “OK folks looks like it’s possibly going to be growing time again. I am preparing for a move into Clark County this weekend,” Robbie Seastrunk, Pafford’s operations manager, sent ahead of an announcement that had yet to be made public.

Headquartered in Hope, Arkansas, and serving four Midwest states and several Southwest Arkansas counties, Pafford EMS boasts a fleet of 250 ambulances and 1,800 employees. But that isn’t enough to appease many knowledgeable first responders who say Clark County residents have been blessed — nay, spoiled — by having a dedicated group of medics capable of providing urgent medical care for rural residents and who know the county road system like the back of their hands.

Combined with its local ties to the community, the fact that Valor EMS had been passed over twice in its negotiations with Baptist Health is raising eyebrows among its staunch supporters. Many fear that Baptist’s choice in Pafford — a private business decision that reportedly involved input from the county judge — will send career paramedics and their families packing for jobs elsewhere. Baptist medics contacted by The Arkadelphian declined to speak on the record, but a consensus have confided in other sources that they fear either losing their jobs or risking a sizable pay cut when their contract with Baptist comes to an end at midnight Sunday, April 6.

County Judge Troy Tucker said his involvement in meetings with Baptist was “to make sure we had advanced life services in Clark County. Tucker said he was not involved in any of the negotiations between private companies.

Clark County’s ambulance service, in a nutshell

Since the days of yesteryear, when funeral homes acted as both undertakers and medics, ambulance services in Clark County have been loosely described as a game of “hot potato”, an apparent unprofitable venture and revolving door of providers who have taken the helm of responding to emergencies and transporting patients to local and/or regional hospitals. Baptist has been the local provider of emergency medical transport for some 30 years until recent weeks, when the privately owned, Little Rock-based nonprofit system began negotiations to offload its ambulance service onto another company.

Unlike local police and fire agencies, urgent medical calls requiring hospital transport aren’t dispatched through Clark County’s newly consolidated 911 system (nor had they been prior to the merger). Instead, they’ve been dispatched through Baptist’s Little Rock headquarters. Also, unlike most Arkansas counties, Clark County does not currently have a contract with an ambulance provider to respond to emergency medical calls.

One solution proposed on social media was to rotate medical calls between ambulance services, akin to how local law enforcement agencies call upon the next-available towing service at car accidents. That logic, however, has its flaws, as evidenced by a former medic-turned-tow-truck-driver who pointed out that outside ambulance services would flock to Clark County to abuse the system — some would respond when needed, while others would sit idle and claim afterward that they were available.

Pafford denied services in Hot Springs this week

Speaking to the Hot Springs City Board earlier this week, Pafford’s CEO and heiress of the company, Jamie Grisham-Pafford, vied against competitors for a chance to secure exclusive rights to ambulance services in the Spa City scene, but learned prior to the meeting that Pafford EMS had been deprived of its woman-owned business status based on a lack of a formal designation, according to The Sentinal-Record newspaper.

Nevertheless, Grisham-Pafford spoke to city officials regarding the application. Her presentation begins at about the 3:10:00 mark in the video below. She wasn’t shy about invoking the name of her father, the company’s founder who in 2016 was convicted of raping a young boy, a verdict for which the then-72-year-old was sentenced to 50 years in a state penitentiary. The company, too, has had its share of legal issues, agreeing to pay more than $390,000 in fines in 2017 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for employing an individual it knew was excluded from participation in federal health care programs.

VIDEO LINK: https://www.cityhs.net/417/City-Board-Meeting-videos

Calling it a “flawed” process, Grisham-Pafford urged directors to question how ambulance services are selected, and went on to tell the city board that her company covers 25% of Arkansas with 97 ambulances. But, she noted, Pafford wouldn’t go where the welcome mat wasn’t laid out: “I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted,” she told one director who applauded her application.

Decision expected soon

An inside source said Baptist medics are expecting a meeting Thursday, April 3, to learn the fate of the existing ambulance service. Baptist officials have remained extremely tight-lipped about the pending sale. A top administrator told The Arkadelphian last week that a decision and announcement would be made “within a week.”

Like most everyone else, Valor EMS has been left in the dark on any news related to the pending sale. Owner J.D. Windham said Thursday morning that Baptist has not contacted him to accept or deny his offer of $415,000 for the purchase of Baptist’s assets, as well as an undisclosed amount for capital operating costs for startup costs.