||| FROM KAT BARNARD for ORCAS ISLAND FIRE & RESCUE |||
San Juan County is fortunate to have access to three different medevac services. Medical evacuation, often shortened to medevac or medivac, is the timely and efficient movement and en route care provided by medical personnel to patients in a rural location (like Orcas Island) or injured patients from the scene of an accident.
Patients requiring urgent care are transported to receiving medical facilities that will be able to care for them. Without a hospital emergency room on Orcas Island, many urgent 911 calls require aeromedical services. Waiting for the next ferry, in many situations, is not an option.
The three commercial companies that provide services to our communities are Airlift Northwest (ALNW), Island Air Ambulance (IAA), and Life Flight Network (LFN). All three of these companies provide reliable service and are staffed with qualified emergency medical crews.
Why should we belong to all three companies?
All three medevac services are utilized by OIFR and other agencies in San Juan County, and all three companies are certified to have the same level of care. The utilization of an air transport service depends on several factors, including the severity of the patient’s condition, the availability of that resource, response time to the island, weather, landing zone location, destination hospital, and other factors.
There is no way to predict the weather, the nature of the emergency, or aircraft availability. Weather conditions sometimes dictate which medivac provider can land an aircraft on Orcas Island, take off, and transport someone to a medical facility. These same weather conditions may also affect which hospital destination is chosen.
There are also times when aircraft are unavailable because they are already transporting patients, and your medical condition warrants immediate transport. In these cases, the closest available resource is used to transport you to an emergency department/specialty center. Therefore, any company servicing our area may transport you due to weather or aircraft availability.
- Airlift Northwest is primarily a helicopter medevac service but does have airplanes in its fleet. ALNW is based in cities along the Western coast of Washington State, the closest being Bellingham. They offer a membership program that provides Southeast Alaska and Washington residents with high-quality air medical service.
- Island Air Ambulance is a critical care air ambulance service located in Friday Harbor, Washington, and serves all of San Juan County and surrounding regions. Their nationally award-winning fixed-wing medevac program is CAMTS accredited, assuring the highest standards of care. The Island Air fleet of state-of-the-art Cessna Caravans is custom-configured specifically for air ambulance service.
- Life Flight is a well-established company that has recently started to provide helicopter service out of Coupeville and Port Angeles. They are a not-for-profit patient transport service providing helicopter, fixed-wing, and ground ambulance transport throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Their mission is saving lives with industry-leading care and transport.
All companies offer air medevac memberships to offset the costs of an emergency medical flight. OIFR recommends you participate in all three programs. We encourage you to visit their websites to learn more about our partners in patient care.
So, you left out the most important detail. Some regulation states that if the service you have membership in … lets say “fails you,” you are then transported by another service . And pay full price! Even though you bought med evac coverage!
What is wrong with this picture? If i got it wrong, what is the case?
Do people with Medicare Insurance need to subscribe to these services?
Yes, ‘fraid so, Amanda.
To Amanda Azous: as far as I know, Medicare covers ambulance service, by land or air, to the nearest medical facility that can provide appropriate care. So the answer (as I read the documentation from Medicare) is no, people with Medicare do not need to subscribe to these services.
To Lin: from Medicare & You, 2024: “Medicare may pay for emergency ambulance transportation in an airplane or helicopter if you need immediate and rapid ambulance transport that ground transportation can’t provide. ….You pay 20% of the Medicare-approved amount. The Part B deductible applies.”
Important that everyone realize that these for profit medevac companies only will sell you a “membership” if you already have insurance, and their coverage only covers those expenses that are not covered by your insurance. Membership is still a useful thing to have – but patients can still anticipate considerable paperwork and billing headaches- it is not as simple as “you’re a member, you’re covered.”
Perhaps more importantly, residents, local elected officials, and our EMS leadership should apply strong pressure on these businesses to offer a consolidated membership rather than forcing residents to pay for multiple duplicative services. The best way to make this happen would be for EMS providers to offer to prioritize the use of whatever two providers join forces to offer a joint membership.
Thank you so much for this article. It is critical for all islanders to have all three “memberships” to avoid a $20,000 plus bill if transported in an emergency. I appreciate that we now have three airlift providers serving Orcas. I know through personal experience five years ago how vital this service is. And, not all Medicare policies cover this type of service-read your contracts carefully before assuming otherwise.