$40,000 Bill To Transport Child By Helicopter Illustrates Emergency Air Travel's Cost

CEDAR PARK, TX -- The cost of using a medical helicopter during an emergency has reached new heights in Texas, and one family is paying a steep price for that reality.

In 2013, four-year-old Isaac Brock suffered severe burns after a fire in Burnet, a town a little over 50 miles northwest of Austin. After his dad took him to a hospital in Cedar Park, a company named PHI Air Medical transported the youngster to a burn unit in San Antonio..

The cost: $40,206, reports KVUE-TV in an investigative report. The bill included an $18,964 flat fee, plus $247 per mile.

In its report, KVUE broke it down. That amount is enough to fly someone around the world nine times over with money left over, according to Delta.com. It costs just over $4,000 to fly from Austin to Atlanta, London, Mumbai, Tokyo, Honolulu, Los Angeles and back to Austin, the news station found.

Adding to the family’s stress, the company later sent the unpaid bill to a collections agency, demanding payment of $30,000. On Thursday (March 17), the company accepted a $5,000 settlement.

Texas Department of Insurance documents obtained by KVUE indicate that PHI’s air ambulance base price fees have grown exponentially -- 127 percent from $11,492 in 2010 to $26,177 by 2015.

PHI officials declined the news station’s request for an on-camera interview. But in a telephone interview, a spokesman suggested market forces dictated the high cost for their service.

““We are not subsidized by any governmental agency in any way,” company spokesman Brad Deutser told a television news reporter on the telephone. “We simply are providing a service with a cost that’s fair to run a business.”

The spokesman declined to discuss the family’s bill, but blamed the family for the their need to resort to a collections agency to recover the cost.

“It’s extraordinarily rare when a patient has been sent to collections” Deutser told the television station. “It means they did not work with us to resolve the cost.”

It’s likely the Brock family isn’t the last to get a steep bill for helicopter rescue. Congress’ deregulation of the airline industry in 1978 -- medical helicopters included -- opened the door for companies to set their own prices, the station reports.

But not all medical helicopter companies operate the same way, KVUE notes in its report. Dallas-based Car Plan, one of the country’s oldest non-profit air ambulance programs, has a decidedly different business model.

“Were a non-profit and therefore were not going to try to figure out the most expensive way to do it,” CEO James Swartz said. “We’re going to try to find the most efficient and inexpensive way to do it.”

PHI’s price structure is quite different. The $247-per-mile charge to fly a patient is in dramatic contrast to the $22 per mile Medicare would have reimbursed. That’s 1,112% above what Medicare considers fair market price, KVUE reported.