The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury have issued a highly anticipated final rule relating to implementation of the No Surprises Act (NSA). As you know, SOAR has been a long supporter of the NSA because it removes patients from the middle of any billing dispute between medical providers and insurers, thereby protecting patients from “balance bills.” While there are encouraging improvements to the final implementation rule compared to the previous iterations, SOAR is concerned that it does not go far enough in holding insurance companies accountable to a fair Independent Dispute Resolution process. Many health plans have used numerous tactics to both delay and decrease reimbursement, which has resulted in base closures, greatly impacting patients’ access to emergency services. We plan to continue monitoring the rollout of the NSA in the coming months to ensure patients are protected.
As always, our goal is to preserve access to air medical services for patients across the country, especially those in rural and underserved areas. To that end, as we turn our attention from the NSA to other issues, there are numerous challenges facing the air medical industry and threatening its ability to continue providing lifesaving service. Chiefly among them is the reimbursement rate by government payors.
Air ambulance providers are currently reimbursed at less than 50 percent of the actual cost of flights for Medicare transports. Given that 40 percent of all air medical patients are covered by Medicare, this significantly and adversely impacts the ability of air medical providers to operate.
Unfortunately and at the same time, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to cut its reimbursement rate for emergency air medical services in early 2023, which, combined with the low Medicare reimbursement rates, could force more bases to close and will have a significant impact on the access to emergency flights, particularly for the 85 million rural Americans who live miles away from the nearest medical center.
SOAR will continue to push for the much-needed updates to Medicare and fight to stop the VA from cutting its rate – our communities are counting on it.