Medical Transportation Blog

One of the main reasons people choose to travel by air ambulance or on a medically equipped coach as opposed to flying on a commercial airline is for the privacy that his type of transportation affords.  Many of us to not want other people starring at us when we are not feeling well, especially if we are having to wear an oxygen mask or have a feeding tube sticking out our nose.  Maybe we have had a recent stroke, have difficulty walking or cannot walk  down a narrow aisle and into a very small bathroom. Both an air ambulance jet and medical coach offer privacy from the airport crowds and the close proximity of other passengers on an airline flight.

Does it make a difference?  It does to the person being transported who might have an in-flight or in-transit medical urgency. Having a team of professional caring pilots or drivers and and nurse taking care of personal hygiene needs makes one feel not only comfortable but spoiled!  Almost any form of transportation beats the waiting and hassles of the crowds and going through airport security.

Potential clients should know what we think about Med Coach:

Hi Everyone,

My Mom, L_ _ _ _ _,  was transported by your Med Coach from Orlando Fl to Grand Rapids MI on Friday March 27.      I wanted to send you a note to thank you for everything your company did for us.
Your representative, Brenda Funn was so quick in her responses to my question and getting me a quote. She worked so hard to coordinate a date to have a coach ready for when my Mom was going to be released from the hospital. I also was so impressed by her willingness to work with the hospital Case Manager directly allowing me the time to spend with my Mom.

The Med Coach arrived right on time and I can’t tell you how relieved I was when I met their nurse Julie who would attend to my Mom during the trip. Julie took right over with the hospital staff making sure she had all the necessary information. When something was needed (such as portable oxygen to get my Mom from the hospital roo m to the coach) Julie looked for alternatives if the hospital could not provide what she needed. It took so much of the burden off of this stressful situation.

Julie was also so attentive to my Dad. He has been on an emotional roller coaster with my Mom being ill and Julie was sympathetic and took care of him on the trip as well as my Mom. Julie would call me periodically during the long drive to keep me up to date on how they both were doing. In fact, my Mom’s condition improved during the trip, thanks to Julie’s expertise.

My Dad couldn’t say enough about how wonderful and professional the two drivers were and he appreciated their conversation during the long trip.

Thank you again for providing such a top notch program. The program would not work without the wonderful people employed with the company. The caring and all the personal touches that were portrayed by each person helped make an unpleasant situation less stressful and more tolerable.

Thanks so much,
from the entire S_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  Family*

* privacy is also an important part of our service

In the highly mobile, tourist segment of our economy, we’re prepared to enjoy our experience without distraction.

Traveling overseas often creates severe, but mostly temporary, distractions for travelers who suddenly become ill or have accidents in out-of-the way places.  Breaking a leg, cracking a hip-bone, getting a kidney stone — these and many more possibilities are serious interruptions to travel.  If the travelers have foresight, they might have purchased travel insurance or trip interruption policies, either within their credit card, or separately.  There are hundreds of variations of these plans.

But what if you drive, or travel someplace in the states and have the same kind of event and you become stymied in a location hundreds/thousands of miles from home.  And what if you can’t drive back, or flying is out of the question for medical reasons, i.e. having a large cast, or requiring oxygen?  And you need to get home!

Medically escorted travel in well furnished motor coaches prepared for client/patient comfort is available in most circumstances of required travel.  Coaches are like traveling hospital rooms, with a trained nurse escort, and two experienced drivers traveling 24/7 to get you from your “stymied” location, back to a place which is familiar and where family or friends can look after your welfare.  A family member can usually travel with you, having recliners, television sets, and kitchen facilities for travel comfort.

This kind of travel is not inexpensive, but when travel is essential, it is a wonderful alternative to being alone away from home, and being sick or injured.  In most all circumstances, there is no insurance to cover the cost, but when emergencies arise, sometimes you can’t be held up by that issue.  That’s the nature of emergencies, but someone in the medical transport industry can help you bridge the exasperation of making arrangements to get you “back home” or where you want to be.

Everyone must fantasize about who is inside those huge motor coaches we see on the highways. Is it Faith Hill, or maybe Michael Jordan, or is it just some lucky rich guy who hit it big in the market and spends his time roaming the country?

Or could it be someone with a medical illness being transported home?

We’ve probably passed someone of notoriety at one time or another.  Or, we could be passing someone who is in a desperate health situation who is being moved from one location to a more desirable location to get needed medical attention, or to be near family who can better take care of the person, or who is returning home from a distant place where he or she had an accident or got real sick.  Or maybe it’s a person who is being transferred “back home” to spend his or her last days among those who love them and want to be close.

Unless you need one, you probably don’t know about these medical transports.  They are a hidden gem in our nation of high emphasis on health care.

The coaches are furnished like miniature hospital rooms with hospital type beds with rails, private bathrooms, furnished kitchen and entertainment areas for the medical staff and the family escort who may be traveling along with the patient. These medical coaches  transport people with stable medical conditions including:
* Chronic Illnesses
* Stroke
* Cancer
* Chronic Lung or Heart Conditions
* Alzheimer’s
* Dementia
* injuries due to accidents.

A medical attendant or escort is on duty for the extent of the trip, which generally travels 24/7 with two experienced drivers taking turns to expedite the travel to the destination.  They can sometimes tow a private vehicle if the family needs to return it to the patient’s destination.

The family may provide an attendant of choice: nurse, paramedic or caregiver; or more likely, the transport experience will include a qualified attendant for the trip to operate any medical equipment required for the patient’s comfort which can be arrange for the trip, such as oxygen monitoring or suction.

Next time I see one on the road, I won’t pre-judge the occupant to be someone more fortunate than me.

At any time, difficult times can happen to you regardless of your age, or where you are.  And difficult decisions have to be made.

In the extreme circumstance, you could be traveling out of the country and get sick or have an accident.  That happens more than we might realize.  But if it happens within the US borders, the needed decisions are somewhat the same but the availability to services are more under your control.  What resources were available before the internet?  It’s hard to imagine the difficulty of trying to find medical transportation before the internet.

But even now, if you do a search for the terms “medical transportation” you will find “millions” of choices to review.  The problem is that many are not at all related to your immediate transportation needs — some are seeking buyers for ambulance equipment, some for transportation across town to the doctor’s office.  These searches can be a waste of your valuable time.

So a very first question to ask would be “Do you perform long distance medical transfers?  After that, you’ll need to ask about the equipment used, how up to date it is, the attending crew, and of course, the cost.  There can be cost flexibility if your time of need is flexible — maybe you can tag onto a returning trip from another location.

Some companies only do short trips with vans, or ambulance type vehicles.  On those trips, there may not be room for a family member to travel with the patient.  The longer your trip, the greater the need for comfort and close care to the patient.

There is so much to check out, but the comfort and medical care of your loved one can be greatly enhanced if you are able to do extensive research among the “millions” of posts on the internet.

P.S.  If your loved one is in a hospital, some times the patient coordinator or social services representative may have had some experience with a transport company which they are comfortable recommending.  Patients being discharged from hospitals,  as well as nursing homes and rehab facilities and ALF’s, can also check with case managers and discharge planners who also are helpful resource people

One of the scariest thoughts that may enter your mind while preparing for a long or extended stay or trip is, “What will happen if I get sick, hurt or disabled while I’m gone?”   It’s a question as important as any research you might do for your travel, but certainly not as pleasant as thinking about your destination.
Travel insurance for health care, or trip cancellation/interruption is an option, but the reality of what to actually do when it happens is frightening, and the costs of travel in this situation is a gigantic challenge, especially if insurance isn’t available, for one reason or another.
Families often must face a difficult set of decisions for a loved one.  “What is the best way to provide emotional, social/relational/spiritual /family support for the one we love?”  Proximity to family is a huge motivator, often dictated by the expense of travel back and forth by a family member(s), or the cost of a care facility where the patient is located.
Or, “since we live so far away, can the whole family find a better way to care for our loved one closer to home, where we can also provide care and love too?
Satisfying relocation needs for near-death circumstances often becomes a factor.
A medically supervised transfer is a way to satisfy the family’s need, to be closer to the patient, or for the patient to be closer to a next phase, i.e. hospice care, a move into a relative’s home, or to a different medical facility.
We don’t want to think about such things, but life is real, and often includes decisions about transporting loved ones for medical reasons.  It’s comforting to know there are professionals whose life’s work is to help in these circumstances.

It’s difficult to imagine the absence of a lifestyle the morbidly obese person has.  The desperation on the faces of contestents on the TV weight loss program is so sad, and it’s a wonder they could even get to the show’s filming location.  On a recent show, one of the patients, an elderly man, passed out and had to be transported to a hospital. How do they get there?  Looking into this query, I found this to be a major problem for hospitals — getting them in for care, and then providing care for them once they arrive.

A hospital in Milwaukee reported “Much of our new equipment is geared towards safe transfer and care of the obese patients, such as lifts, transfer boards, reclining chairs, transfer devices and wheelchairs that all have higher weight capacities.”

Cost efficient and caring health care providers have an extra burden, beyond the challenges of today’s health care in the USA.   When we can go for care on our initiative, we cannot imagine the challenge of getting someone who cannot even get out of bed.  Heart rendering!!!!!

The cost to transport a loved one continues to rise with the increasing costs to provide transportation services. As of January 30th 2009, a typical air ambulance flight from California to North Carolina now costs around $ 35,000 for the medical jet and medical crew including ground ambulance charges in each city compared to long distance ground costs around $12,000. Transporting a patient by ground is one third the cost of transporting a person by air. 

Why the big difference? Here are a few reasons. Jet fuel prices have not fallen nearly as much as gasoline prices. During these challenging economic times fewer people can afford an air ambulance flight thus the overhead costs rise to offset the fewer flight hours. Insurance costs have risen significantly along with the frequency of  helicopter accidents. Salaries for critical care flight nurses are among the highest for all nursing positions. Flight training and recurrent training costs for pilots continue to rise.  With fewer air ambulance companies operating there is less competition than even 2 years ago.

Therefore, only the most critical patients who may require invasive medical care and the shortest time in transfer are going by air ambulance, as they should.  However when time in transit is not a critical factor more and more people are choosing to go by medical ground transportation. Since insurance rarely covers the cost of medical transportation, assuming you did not buy a travel insurance policy before your accident, you too may decide to stay the ground.

A word about Medicare reimbursement for medical transportation

In most cases Medicare will not reimburse for non-emergency transportation. They will only pay for a medically necessary transport to the closest medical facility,  usually in an emergent situation. The need for a stretcher does not constitute a medical necessity. It is fraudulent for an ambulance service to file for Medicare in a non-emergency setting and claim that they performed a procedure on a patient that they did not do.

If you seek reimbusement, be sure to file a request before the transport and be prepared to defend your request proving the air or ground transport is medically necessary with letters from the transferring and receiving physician

The comfort factor: One of the most frequently asked questions we receive in the transport center is ”How comfortable is the ride?” 

Many patients / clients  who do not like to fly or cannot fly must travel by ambulance or an extended van.  An Ambulance, A Limo, a shuttle van, an SUV an RV does not provide the same ride as a Motor Coach. The motor coach is built on a special chassis with a very long wheelbase (316”)  which gives the same smooth ride as a tour bus. Coaches are made to provide comfort for long distance trips and are not like an ambulance or van, which is for short distances.  Coaches have independent front suspension that gives a more stable ride and eight air bags that cushion the bumps to provide the smoothest possible ride. At twice the weight of an RV and four times the weight of an ambulance, the motor coach smoothes out the roughness of the road.  Ambulances are many SUV’s are built on a truck chassis with no air suspension system and thus have a”hard” ride.   

The medical coach is specially designed for the client traveling long distance, which means they must have a smooth ride, a hospital-type bed with bed rails that allows the client to sit up or recline.  The aisle must be wide enough for a stretcher to on and off-load the client. A full size bed with a special hospital mattress for bedsores instead of a hard metal stretcher with a 3-inch pad on an ambulance adds to the comfort of the trip. Clients can sit up in bed and watch the scenery out of a large bay window vs. looking out the back of an ambulance or van lying on a stretcher.  The on-onboard private bathroom is more comfortable and more accessable than getting out of an ambulance or van to use a public restroom. Other important amenities on a long cross-country trip are a TV with the option to watch movies on a CD player.  A microwave and refrigerator makes for hot and cold drinks, fresh foods, and snacks. An added benefit is to have a relative ride along with you which is not possible in back of an ambulance and most extended vans do not have room for a comfortable recliner seat. The coordinators describe the MedCoach as just like being at home but you are in a “home on wheels”. So, how’s the ride? “The smoothest we can make it”. Soother and more comfortable than any other way to travel by ground. Coaches are made for comfort.