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And now there are too many helicopters - 908 as of last year - fighting for patients and profits at the same time. Ira Blumen, a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Chicago and medical director of the university’s Aeromedical Network.īlumen said the industry - which is dominated by a few companies owned by private equity firms - expanded dramatically the last time Medicare boosted its payments, in 2002. Too many air ambulances sit idle much of the time, said Dr. Ground ambulances often carry critically ill patients, too. Others say the industry’s cost estimates are inflated by profit-driven expansion of a lucrative industry. Legislation pending in both the House and Senate would do so, but there hasn’t been much movement on those bills. The industry has been advocating hard to get Medicare to boost its reimbursements, Sherlock said.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said it pays an average of $4,624 per ride, plus $31.67 a mile - which works out to an average Medicare reimbursement of $6,556 for helicopter ambulance rides for seniors. “Our real cost per flight is the $10,200 plus the unreimbursed cost on each flight for Medicare, Medicaid and patients without any coverage,” wrote Shelly Schneider, the company spokeswoman. Each base handles about 300 transports a year, and the rides cost about $11,000 each, according to the report.Ī spokeswoman for Air Evac Lifeteam said the company bills people so much because it is trying to make up for what she said are meager payments from Medicare and Medicaid. The report found it takes about $2.9 million a year to run a single helicopter base.

Rick Sherlock, president of the Association of Air Medical Services, a trade group, said air ambulances require a more highly trained crew than a ground ambulance, because only the sickest or most seriously injured patients need air transport.ĪAMS commissioned a study to determine the actual cost of a medevac ride.

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Since launching the “Bill of the Month” series in February, NPR and Kaiser Health News have received more than a dozen bills from critically ill patients like Khan who were charged tens of thousands of dollars for an air ambulance ride even after insurers’ payments.Īir ambulance companies defend their charges. “It there’s no oxygen, that means those cells are going to die.” Minutes are precious and the helicopter can get from Wichita Falls to Fort Worth in an hour or less, half the time it takes by ground ambulance, he said.īut complaints about sky-high bills to patients for air ambulance services are common. “If there’s no blood going that means there’s no oxygen,” he said. Raj Gandhi, the medical director for trauma services at JPS Hospital. A company representative told him the helicopter ride would likely cost more than $50,000 and asked him how he planned to pay.įor Khan, rapid transportation to the trauma center was absolutely essential since the blood supply to his arm had been cut off, said Dr. What gives: Khan got his first call from Air Evac Lifeteam just three days after the accident, while he was still lying in the hospital.

MORE: The remedy for surprise medical bills may lie in stitching up federal law