Guest Column: Bill could harm air ambulance service

Published 12:30 am Tuesday, October 29, 2019

In Clatsop County, we are home to beautiful landscapes like beaches, state forests and mountains. We’re also home to one of the world’s deadliest bars — the Graveyard of the Pacific — the Columbia River Bar.

Unfortunately, we’re over 100 miles away from the nearest high-level trauma center. This leaves us in a challenging situation. When someone is in need of a high-level trauma center, we rely on air ambulances to provide lifesaving care and fast.

Even as sheriff, I can’t call an air ambulance to the scene of an incident. That call needs to be made by a medical professional. The decision to utilize an air ambulance is a serious one. It is not a resource we want to waste. Along with lifesaving care, air ambulances come with a hefty cost — they are expensive to operate.

Unfortunately, patients often get hit with the bill, a “surprise bill.” According to a 2019 YouGov poll, 87% of people (93% of people that live in rural areas) feel that health insurance companies should cover services like air ambulances instead of pushing back on decisions from the medical professionals who decided the service was medically necessary.

Still, over half of all air ambulance claims are originally denied by insurers. That same poll said that nearly 60% of people expect that any remaining or “balanced” bills should be the responsibility of the insurer, not the patient or the provider. After all, what is the point of having health insurance if it doesn’t cover your health care?

Right now, there is proposed legislation in Washington, D.C., that I think intends to address the issue of “surprise billing” but doesn’t really get it. The Lower Health Care Costs Act, while well-intentioned, misses the real issue responsible for the surprise billing of air ambulances. Instead of encouraging the coverage of these emergency services, the bill makes it easier for insurers to keep air ambulances out of their networks and deny claims while the cost of health care continues to rise.

Luckily, there is a better way.

Some states have implemented policies that allow insurers and providers to negotiate a cost that works for them while guaranteeing patients aren’t billed for unforeseen, emergency services. This approach incentivizes in-network agreements and makes sure that patients can focus on recovery instead of worrying about paying medical bills they were never expecting.

This issue is so important to me because air ambulances are especially vital to rural communities, like ours. Nearly 90% of patients transported by air medical services live in a rural zip code. If the Lower Health Care Costs Act is passed, it will eventually force air ambulance bases all over the country to close. This would be leaving the 85 million Americans in rural areas that rely on air medical transport to access a Level I or Level II trauma center within 60 minutes in a dire situation.

I hope U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden understands the issue and votes against this potentially harmful bill.