Life Flight Network no longer offering memberships

Life Flight Network, which is a not-for-profit air medical service, can no longer selling memberships in Montana. This is the result of legislative House Bill 73, which was recently signed into law by Governor Steve Bullock. In an unrelated move, Life Flight is now in-network with Montana’s two large insurance companies, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Montana and Pacific Source. The two companies reaches about 90 percent of the commercial insurance in Montana.

With the recent legislation, “we can sell memberships but basically it’s selling insurance,” said Life Flight Network Chief Customer Officer, Justin Dillingham. “We are not set up to be insurance agents or an insurance company. It’s unfortunate because doing away with this ultimately hurts the people of Montana who are interested in this.”

This is because a membership with Life Flight costs $65 per year and it would cover someone whether they have insurance or not and there would not be any additional fees. With an insurance policy, the policy holder will be covered but only up to a certain amount and they would be responsible for whatever was left over.

For example, “if the insurance company pays 80 percent and you pay 20 percent of the bill and let’s say there’s a bill of $10,000. Blue Cross Blue Shield pays $8,000 and you are responsible for $2,000,” said Dillingham. “It’s a good thing because you only pay $2,000 compared to if you had to pay a much larger bill if you were not in-network. But there’s still the possibility of having some out of pocket expenses. Compared to an actual membership, where the end user would not owe us anything. However, if you’ve met all your deductibles and copayments for the year, then you may not pay anything out of pocket. But with most people they would end up owing something.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield already had network contracts with hospital-based air ambulance services in Billings, Kalispell and Great Falls, as well as a cooperative in northeastern Montana. Pacific Source Health Plans announced last month that they also reached a network agreement with REACH Air Medical Services, which has aircraft based in Helena and Bozeman.

House Bill 73 was introduced by Democratic Representative Ryan LYNCH during this past legislative session and was the result of a working group created to research the issue after Montana residents complained to state insurance regulators that they were getting hit with bills for tens of thousands of dollars for out-of-network medical flights.

There were also complaints that private air ambulance companies would not negotiate in good faith or explain their rates. Air ambulance companies said insurers were making low “take-it-or-leave-it” contract offers. And patients were stuck in the middle with costly bills.

House Bill 73 required health insurance and air ambulance companies to negotiate settlements of air ambulance bills, on a case-by-case basis if necessary, leaving patients responsible only for their copays and deductibles.

It also states that “individuals enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, or the healthy Montana kids plan are not subject to charges billed by a private air ambulance service in excess of applicable deductions, coinsurance, and copayments.”

Another area of concern included in the bill is that “participation in a membership program does not guarantee that in the event of a transport, the private air ambulance service will provide the transport; and…if another private air ambulance service provides the transport, the individual will not receive the benefits provided under the membership agreement.” Something agreements with insurance companies helps to eliminate.

With this new provision, insurers don’t buy air ambulance services separately through their insurance company rather it’s a part of their policy, “it’s the same like if you go to the hospital emergency room, it’s covered. It’s a line item in your insurance policy and we accept that as payment,” said Dillingham.

He also said that people in Montana who currently have memberships through Life Flight Network will be able to continue to renew their membership because they are grandfathered in, however they will not be selling new memberships. “People in the network stay in it as long as they keep their membership in good standing.”

Life Flight Network currently serves Montana from bases in Butte and Missoula, as well as Idaho. Each helicopter has the ability to respond to locations more than 150 miles from its base, so patients across the state have access to high-quality, fast critical care transport they state.