Did you know that Medicare can cover 80% of the cost of air transportation in an emergency? It is true, Medicare may pay for emergency ambulance transportation in an airplane or helicopter if your health condition requires immediate and rapid ambulance transportation that ground transportation can’t provide, and one of the following applies:
– Your pickup location cannot be easily reached by ground transportation.
– Long distances or other obstacles, like heavy traffic, could stop you from getting care quickly if you traveled by ground ambulance.
Logically, this makes sense as the 2 reasons listed above are really the major reasons a person w
ould need air transportation. Because this benefit is covered by Medicare, it really is not necessary to purchase a separate “helicopter transport policy” that is offered by different air transport companies.
Non-emergency ambulance transportation
In some cases, non-emergency ambulance transportation may be provided when you need ambulance transportation to diagnose or treat your health condition and use of any other transportation method could endanger your health. In some cases, Medicare may cover limited non-emergency ambulance transportation if you have a statement from your doctor stating that
Ambulance transportation is necessary due to your medical condition. Even though a situation is not an emergency, ambulance transportation may be medically necessary to get you to a hospital or other health facility.
Hopefully you will never need to take an ambulance ride in a helicopter!
You can read the official Medicare publication here.
