Policymakers Should Preserve Patient Access to Emergency Air Medical Services
WASHINGTON, D.C.- In a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), the Save Our Air Medical Resources (SOAR) campaign and its partners urged the committee to reject Section 105 of the Lower Health Care Costs Act, noting that it could limit access to air medical services for millions of Americans, especially those living in rural areas. The groups, which include the Brain Injury Association of America, Consumer Action, the Consumer Health Coalition, the Association of Air Medical Services, and the International Association of Flight and Critical Care Paramedics, called on Congress to look at the variety of factors affecting air ambulance costs in order to adopt a more comprehensive, data-driven solution to surprise billing issues.
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Full text of the groups’ letter to the Senate HELP Committee:
September 16, 2019
Dear Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray,
We are writing to you today to urge you to protect and preserve access to emergency air medical services in S. 1895, the Lower Health Care Costs Act. Emergency air ambulances provide the critical care and quick transport needed to keep patients alive in times of medical emergencies. Air medical services are especially critical in rural communities, where hospital closures have significantly reduced access to care. Since 2010, more than 110 rural hospitals have shut their doors, which has left approximately 85 million Americans more than an hour drive away from a Level 1 or Level 2 trauma center.
Unfortunately, air ambulances have come under fire due to isolated, but highly-publicized issues related to patients’ surprise medical bills.
We agree that surprise medical billing must be addressed, and we appreciate the considerable time and effort your committee has dedicated to crafting S.1895. Although it was conceived with the best intentions, this legislation – most notably section 105 – will further restrict access to air medical services and cause more harm to rural communities.
Section 105 will allow insurance companies to pay air medical providers a median in-network rate. However, many insurers refuse to bring providers in-network in the first place or, in some cases, only bring in one emergency air medical provider. This means that insurers will be able to essentially set their own prices because an accurate median in-network rate cannot be set if there are no, or only one, providers in-network.
Arbitrary median in-network rates will do nothing to solve the issue of surprise billing. In fact, these rates are likely to result in even larger bills for patients with private insurance.
Currently, Medicaid and Medicare patients – along with those who are uninsured – account for more than 70 percent of all air ambulance flights. Despite the significant amount of deployments that these two programs are responsible for, both programs chronically under-reimburse the providers, leaving privately insured patients to cover the difference.
Dangerously low reimbursement rates impact more than individual patients; they also threaten the air medical industry as a whole. Since January 2019, 35 air medical bases throughout the country have closed leaving four million Americans without medical coverage within a ten-minute response time.
Surprise medical billing is a complex issue that must be addressed with comprehensive legislation based on thorough and accurate data from both providers and insurers. A variety of factors – including reimbursement rates which have not been updated in 20 years – impact the costs of air ambulance transports. We urge you to reject Section 105 and consider a more data-driven approach to this issue so that patient access to life-saving air medical services is preserved.
Thank you,
Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA)
Consumer Action
Consumer Health Coalition
International Association of Flight and Critical Care Paramedics (IAFCCP)
Alaska Center for Rural Health and Health Workforce
Save Our Air Medical Resources (SOAR) Campaign
Association of Air Medical Services (AAMS)
CC. Members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions