When some medical needs arise, they may not exactly constitute a dire emergency. Calling 911 can sometimes feel like overkill.

However, one’s ability to find fast, reliable transport to a hospital when those needs do arise can prove difficult for some. Driving oneself to the doctor or calling an Uber aren’t exactly the wisest courses of action when one’s health is on the line.

Filling that role is Illini Non-Emergency Patient Transport (NEPT), a company that prioritizes non-emergency patient transportation over 911 and other emergency calls. Started in February 2023, Illini NEPT is the brainchild of Germantown Hills’ own Jeramy Doerr, paramedic and Emergency Medical Services Chief with the Washington Fire Department.

As many medical calls occur as a result of an accident, it’s humorously appropriate that Jeramy’s career in EMS also happened, as he puts it, “by accident. Honestly, after high school I was completely rudderless,” he recalls. “I lived in West Peoria in my early 20s, and they needed volunteer firefighters and EMTs. I soon joined the West Peoria Fire Department.”

While serving at the WPFD, Jeramy was steered to a fulfilling career by Chief Bob Stecher. “He paid for my EMT class and sent me on a path,” Jeramy admits. “For that, I’m eternally grateful.”

While volunteering his time at the WPFD, Jeramy continued his education at Illinois Central College as an EMT Intermediate, then finished his paramedic training at Advanced Medical Transport (AMT), to which he gives credit for the foundation of knowledge on which he built Illini NEPT years later. 

Now, while he currently puts in his hours at Washington Fire Department, it’s his wife, Kaylee, who oversees the day-to-day operation of their non-emergency transport business.

Just two years after starting Illini NEPT, however, Jeramy and Kaylee welcomed their first child – a baby boy – into their family. Very soon, that now ten-year old boy is going to have a sister. “Kaylee is pregnant with our second child, a baby girl due in February,” Jeramy happily shares. 

Besides already parenting their boy and soon-to-be-born girl, Jeramy and Kaylee are parents of a different sort in their family business. “It sounds cliché, but I care about our employees as if they were family members,” Jeramy says. “We have a range of employees at Illini that includes college students, career EMS, retired police and firefighters, military veterans, and part timers who are full time paramedic/firefighters or hospital nurses. They’re quite the bunch, but they’re great family people who enjoy their children, travel, and more.”

When it comes to what Jeramy enjoys, the answer is quite simple: “Personally, my hobbies rarely involve anything other than family and work,” he admits. “My son loves baseball, so I coach his travel baseball team, which is as close to a personal hobby as I have. Mostly, I enjoy work. I love creating and building, while getting a team to work together toward a common goal. We love taking care of our employees and would rather run lean on staffing than hire those who do not share our goals and vision.”

Taking care of their crews includes providing a TV, an in-house 24-hour gym, and – perhaps the thing that most proves they treat their staff like family – unlimited drinks and snacks. “Happy crews treat customers and patients better, and nothing is more important,” Jeramy states. “Illini also uses local family-owned small businesses for as much work as we possibly can. We believe in supporting other entrepreneurs as often as we can.”

Providing that support for other niche businesses is right up their alley, as Illini NEPT is sort of a niche business itself. “The greater Peoria area has never really had competition in the non-emergency transport space,” Jeramy says. “While it is our goal to stay small and manage our vision for our patients and customers, we do provide a secondary option for hospitals. An unseen benefit of our existence is that when hospitals get busy, we can help move the discharged patients out quickly, meaning the hospital can turn the room over and pull a patient from the emergency department into that room.”

It is important to emphasize, however, that while Illini NEPT’s efforts may be able to help alleviate congestion in the emergency department, they do not provide transport to the emergency room. If someone needs to go to the ER,” Jeramy points out, “they still do need to call 911, as we are strictly non-emergency.” Illini Non-Emergency Patient Transport provides basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS) ambulance transport, as well as wheelchair and behavioral health transportation for long and short distance trips.

“Our goal,” Jeramy adds, “is to continue to earn the trust and respect of our patients and customers by ensuring that when you call us, your patient transportation needs are exceeded. We take that very seriously.”

Illini Non-Emergency Patient Transport can be contacted by calling (309) 840-4503 or emailed at [email protected]. If you’d like to schedule a transport time for you or a loved one or would like to see if working for Illini NEPT would be a good fit for you, visit them on the web at www.illini-nept.com.