While still imperfect, modern emergency medical services are still miraculous compared to what people had to go through just a few decades ago. Now, injured or sick people in inaccessible, rural regions can be quickly transported to hospitals through the air.
But one non-rural person discovered that their insurance only had helicopter options for them, despite living in a city, just three miles from a hospital. So when they received a particularly large bill for an out-of-network ambulance ride, they decided to ask the insurance company if they really wanted to deal with the alternative.
Modern medical emergency services are a fantastic invention that has saved thousands of lives
Image credits: wikipedia.org (not the actual photo)
But one netizen received a large bill for an out-of-network ambulance ride, then realized that their insurance only covered helicopters
Image credits: insta_photos (not the actual photo)
Image credits: DawnBeaver
Having a fleet of vehicles that exist just to get us to a hospital is a great, modern invention
Image credits: EVG Kowalievska (not the actual photo)
For the vast majority of human history, if you had a grievous injury or a particularly bad illness, you would simply die. While this does limit the number of decisions one would have to make, it’s pretty obvious that a system to quickly and effectively get people to a medical specialist is ultimately in everyone’s best interest. The first use of something we would recognize as an ambulance came about in the 17th century, when Dominique Jean Larrey, chief physician for Napoleon Bonaparte developed a system of carts and personnel who would help recover wounded soldiers after a battle. It was only about thirty years later that a similar system was developed for non-military injuries and illnesses. In 1832, London developed a system of carriage-based transport for cholera patients. The Times reported that “The curative process commences the instant the patient is put into the carriage; time is saved which can be given to the care of the patient; the patient may be driven to the hospital so speedily that the hospitals may be less numerous and located at greater distances from each other.”
Even as cars and roads were developed, this would still limit a potential patient to a location a land-based vehicle could reach. As often happens, war is a stimulus for innovation, so it’s not surprising that the first world war provided the blueprint for an air-medical service that started operating in the Australian outback in 1928. The logic is simple, the outback is huge and flat, and a plane is a lot faster than a motor vehicle. However, planes still have a lot of restrictions on where they can take off from and land. As one can pretty easily imagine, the majority of injuries don’t actually happen near nice and flat areas.
As cool as air ambulances are, the fuel and piloting costs are very, very high
Image credits: Mohammed Mzabi (not the actual photo)
A careful reader probably can guess where this is going. That’s right, the vertical landing miracle, the helicopter. The practice of using this vehicle to evacuate heavily injured people from remote locations started during the Korean War, when US H-13 Sioux helicopters would be used in mountainous terrain. Viewers of M*A*S*H will recognize this vehicle, although most don’t know it was among the first instances of a helicopter being used as a medical emergency transport. It wasn’t long until the practice was carried over into the civilian world. From cities to rural areas, there are numerous locations where a helicopter can outstrip nearly. At the same time, there was a general evolution of the ambulance concept. Before, these were just transports, but in the UK, health authorities started to pioneer ambulances as “mobile hospitals,” where some degree of care could be given immediately.
Of course, the average person, thankfully, will never need an air ambulance evacuation. As it stands, this practice is still widely expensive, although a large bill is generally still preferable to death. In the US, the average price of one trip is between $12,000 to $55,000. The disparity in the price, a whooping $40’000, comes from the fact that these sorts of evacuations can range from picking up a person in a rural area to rescuing someone stranded on a mountain. Outside of the US, air ambulance rides can get as expensive as $150,000. While universal healthcare does often cover an air ambulance, there are still certain restrictions due to the cost. If you get injured halfway up a mountain, you will still be billed for the rescue costs, as this isn’t exactly a normal activity that most people do on a daily basis.
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