Before venturing into the backcountry how many of you have considered becoming members of your local Medical Transport programs, here in Oregon ground transportation is offered by Fire-Med and air transport by REACH, Airlink, Cal-Or Life Flight and Life Flight Network.
I am an EMS pilot for REACH out of the Corvallis base and have flown many aviation accident patients. Most did not have a membership and incurred a substantial bill. Aviation along with motorcycling, logging and hiking/hunting produce a fair amount of calls. I believe the memberships are well worth it, and we all should be members of the programs that cover our flying area not only for the benefit, but to support those programs so they will be available in the future. Members will have no out-of-pocket flight expenses if you are flown by a participating provider. FireMed (depending on your area) provides the same benefit for ground transportation. What do you think? Most of the pilots I have talked to weren't even aware that a membership was available. http://www.airmedcarenetwork.com is the largest nationwide program, but your flying area may be covered by more than one provider so check and see which Membership programs are available to you.

I believe St Luke's and St Alphansus in southern Idaho (Boise and Twin Falls?) has a Lifeflight Membership avaliable for only (maybe) $50.00 a year. It would be a good idea to be part of a national network. You never know if your insurance won't pay for the Lifeflight bill these days.

I recently had a friend fall while trail riding (on horseback) in the Sierra's. Broke her leg in two places and had to be flown out by heli. The bill was almost $10,000. I fly, horse back ride and ski in the Sierras so when another friend told me about Calstar I joined - $45 for an individual or $50 for a family membership. Pretty cheap insurance. I also liked their business model - decentralized and the flight crews (not someone sitting in an office hundreds of miles away) are the decision makers.

http://www.calstar.org/

We have what is called STARS. Its an air ambulance, run pretty nice choppers. Its free to anyone who uses it, mostly paid for by oil companies. They are called out to highway crashes, and anywhere else you need them. Out in the bush and mountains they have landing sites, so if you can get to site #2345, call them and they know where to go. Real good setup.

REACH and most operators we will work with local law enforcement and EMS personnel to assist in search and rescue operations and nobody is charged if nobody is transported. Just another huge benefit to the communities that have that resource nearby.


http://www.reachair.com/membership/ covers REACH, AIRLINK, and CAL-Or Life-Flight as well as all AirMedCare providers across the US

http://www.firemed.org. For Oregon

http://www.lifeflight.org/ Norther Oregon southern Washington and Idaho

An excellent, unbiased report. I work with Lifeflight Network and Air St. Lukes and I know that they honor the memberships of each other's and some other services. I know several of the others do this as well, but cannot say for certain what are the specifics for each service. So if you have Cal Star membership and are transported by LifeFlight, you will be billed, but out of pocket / non insured expenses are written off.
$10,000 for a transport is pretty minimal... Kitfox 5 could tell you what it costs to operate one of these helis per hour. And that won't include standby costs, base structures, crew costs, etc. Then when you start writing off parts of bills, that money always has to be redistributed somewhere, so like with any medical cost, the billable amounts can be astounding compared to what some end up paying. No membership means you get the short straw when the bills arrive.

We have a MedStar family membership. It's not just for flying. We like to do a lot of other things where it could come in handy. Snowmobiling, hiking, snowshoeing, etc.

Northwest MedStar https://www.nwmedstar.org/Sub.aspx?id=4 ... itemid=470
"Cost to Join
Peace of mind costs just $59 per family, per year, or $150 for three years. Your membership will cover you, your spouse or domestic partner, and any family members eligible to be claimed on your income tax."

"Thanks to reciprocal agreements with several regional air medical transport providers, your Northwest MedStar membership will be honored by the following providers should you be flown:
•Air St. Luke's - Boise & Meridian, ID
•Care Flight - Reno, NV
•CalStar - Hayward, CA
•Enloe Flight Care - Chico, CA
•Island Air Ambulance - Friday Harbor, WA
•Life Flight Montana - Missoula, MT
•Life Flight Network - Portland, OR"

So what's the average annual membership fee for these?

I don't know how many scuba divers are are on this forum , but my dive insurance from DAN covers medical flights for any "non work related" injury more than 50 miles from home.

I used to help maintain Airlift Northwest's Lears and Commanders and have seen the expense involved first hand.
My oldest son has food allergies, asthma, and a laundry list of other problems, so my folks bought my whole family a membership to Northwest Medstar's Program. Like others said, pretty cheap insurance. https://www.nwmedstar.org/

Zzz wrote:So what's the average annual membership fee for these?

NW Medstar is $59/year and theres a discount for a 3 year membership.

A REACH for Life membership, which is part of the nationwide AirMedCare Network, is $65 and covers everyone in your household.


http://www.reachair.com/membership/

wow, a bunch of ems type folks here. My company offers the same thing for the four corners states, if anyone wants more info then pm me.
RR

Rezrider- Which reservation? I taught sixteen years at Tohatchi on the Navajo Reservation and flew medevac with the 717th out of Santa Fe. We did the medevac for some of the big training exercised at Ft. Irwin. We couldn't compete with civilian medevac unless in the mountains where they didn't want to go and we evaced Mexican Nationals who had no U.S. insurance. They are a full company now. I left the Guard in 83.

Not sure if other air ambulances do this but Life Flight of Oregon gives a pretty significant discount to paid or volunteer Fire/EMS providers, military, SAR etc.

It's been pretty amazing to see how the expansion of air ambulances in the PNW has made a difference in patient outcome for stroke/cardiac. Lots of folks alive today that wouldn't have survived if they were ground pounded several hours to the major medical centers instead.

contactflying wrote:Rezrider- Which reservation? I taught sixteen years at Tohatchi on the Navajo Reservation and flew medevac with the 717th out of Santa Fe. We did the medevac for some of the big training exercised at Ft. Irwin. We couldn't compete with civilian medevac unless in the mountains where they didn't want to go and we evaced Mexican Nationals who had no U.S. insurance. They are a full company now. I left the Guard in 83.

I'm just down the road from Tohatchi in Gallup, I fly all over the rez in a King Air.
Fun times.
RR