Air Ambulances Offer a Lifeline, and Then a Sky-High Bill

Please see the NY Times article below.  As advocates for our patients, we should include the financial burden the medical care we render or order places on patients, when making our decisions about patient care and transport methods. Air Methods, which is profiled in this article, is one of the two providers of air transport in the Hudson Valley.  Air Methods (Stock Symbol: AIRM) is a for profit, publicly traded company. The other provider of air transport in the Hudson Valley is Hackensack University Health Network, a large nonprofit health system. See the picture above, with their management team posing in front of their helicopter. 

Private insurance companies often balk at the cost of air transport, leaving the patient responsible for a large bill that was often not necessary nor requested by the patient. We have witnessed helicopters being used for patients who are then not even admitted to the hospital or released after observation. Air transport, is of course at times, appropriate.  Just consider the financial impact on your patient the next time you choose to fly a stable patient just because of mechanism of injury.  Often, these patients can be transported by ground, faster and at a much lower financial cost.

To read the NY Times are article please click on the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/business/rescued-by-an-air-ambulance-but-stunned-at-the-sky-high-bill.html?ref=health&_r=1