re: OT Lawyers (and Doctors, to a degree)

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A 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.

"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.

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. Medicaid in most states pays less.


So a government run insurance plan fricks people who actually pay for their own insurance? Shocking.

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This is what you took from this? Not that the ambulance company is overcharging, and further charging the patient through aggressive collection tactics, for what insurance doesn't pay?

Acadian Refuses to enter into any contract with any health care provider so that they can bilk both the insurance company and the patient. They call in the helicopter for minor injuries.

You should see what they charge for an ambulance ride. I've seen them charge $1500 for each child passenger. they can pack three kids in a wagon to take 2 miles to a hospital and charge $4500. That's bullshite.

I should clarify. It was a single car accident, all of this is with my health insurance.

I understand. I have contacted a lawyer since I started this thread.

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You should see what they charge for an ambulance ride. I've seen them charge $1500 for each child passenger. they can pack three kids in a wagon to take 2 miles to a hospital and charge $4500. That's bull shite.

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If there is so much profit there then start your own ambulance company and charge less. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

Once we are all riding around in government ambulances there won’t be any competition. The politicians will give the contracts to their buddies and they will add it to the tab of national debt and taxes

I don’t have any direct knowledge of the real expense of this. I’m sure that it’s very expensive to keep a team and helicopter ready 24/7. However, there is no way in hell that from the time the helicopter crew got the call to the point that they landed at the trauma hospital resulted in $46,000 of expenses.

What is likely happening is that the insurance company paid on their scale of direct cost of the trip and the billing entitiy is fishing to see if they they can recoup more than that to get compensation for non-billable expenses to help their overhead.

A good lawyer could probably get the helicopter company to provide an itemized billing statement.

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The helicopter company has to pay many highly trained nurses (CRNAs) and pilots to be on call 24/7 whether they fly or not. And they pay them many multiples of their normal salaries.

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I don’t think I’m looking at it wrong at all.

Is an ER patient billed directly for the time the ER is staffed when they were not there?

It costs like $3 mil a year just to maintain a chopper. That’s not even counting staffing and overhead costs which are probably more than that.

So if they take 1,000 flights a year they have to charge MUCH more to break even than if they make 10,000 flights per year

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$10,000 is more than reasonable IMO for a helicopter ride. $46k is absurd lol.

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Sounds like you should start a company and takeover the market since you can do it so much cheaper

My wife was airlifted by Acadian Ambulance to New Orleans to get life saving surgery and the bill was $42,000, Blue Cross paid 17K and they sent me a bill for $750 which I paid with the swiftness (part of meeting my out of pocket max). In this case the cost of the ride was worth it but they charged too much.

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Sounds like you should start a company and takeover the market since you can do it so much cheaper

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The problem is they are a monopoly so what are you going to do when it is life threatening need?