Clemente working to stay in business

By Don Shilling

A rising number of customers without insurance hurts a local ambulance company.

STRUTHERS — Clemente Ambulance is working on a plan to keep operating even though it has filed for bankruptcy protection.

As the details are worked out, the company and its eight ambulances will continue running as usual, said Eileen Clemente, company chief executive.

“We’ve got some ideas, but it’s nothing I care to share until we have some specifics,” she said.

The Fifth Street company on Monday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which provides it time to reorganize.

A related business, Clemente Funeral Home, is not part of the bankruptcy.

The ambulance company listed assets of less than $50,000 and liabilities of between $100,000 and $500,000. It said it had between 100 and 199 creditors.

Its largest creditors were the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation at $160,000 and BP Oil at $49,200.

Eileen Clemente said workers’ compensation premiums are a major problem for the company. The cost is hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

She also said the company has struggled because insurance companies have reduced payments, and the number of customers who don’t have insurance has increased.

“Very, very, very often they don’t pay,” she said.

She added that she understands the thinking of people who are faced with high medical bills and perhaps less income if they have lost a job.

“They need food and medicine. My bill comes at the bottom of the list,” she said.

Also, people often mistakenly think her ambulance service is subsidized by local governments, she said.

“For me to keep doing this, I can’t continue to do it as a charity,” she said.

She and her late husband, Sam, started the business in 1966. Her son, Sam, and daughter, Cindy, now assist her in running the funeral home and ambulance businesses.

The ambulance business has 65 full- and part-time employees. It also operates five wheelchair vans.

shilling@vindy.com