[Ntrails]

> an average helicopter bill was smth around $200K if I remember correctly, with spikes up to $500K.

Those numbers made me blanch somewhat! Having been in a helicopter (aka Air Ambulance) in the UK, all of which operate as charities iirc, I was curious about their costs.

> The average cost of a helicopter mission is £4,748* and the average cost of a critical care car or rapid response vehicle mission is £2,054*[1].

https://www.airambulancesuk.org/about-us/facts/

eesh

[pshirshov]

In the UK maybe, but in the US you should expect higher bills for _ground_ transport. Like literally, the linked story is about $12K bill for short distance ground transportation not involving any complex procedures. The cases I vaguely remember did include long lists of medical codes.

[closewith]

I tried to find the asterisk there to see the details, but could not.

FWIW I think that HEMS cost is significantly under costed, as the London HEMS H135s run about £2,500 per flight hour on direct flight costs alone, so I suspect the £4,748 figure is referring to that alone.

I think a closer estimate is probably total annual operational costs divided by total shouts, (£18 MM / 2,000) or about £9,000 per shout.

Even that's an under costing, as the clinical personnel, equipment, and liability is shouldered by the NHS. A pure costing is probably closer to 2-3X that per clinical flight.

Still an order of magnitude less than the commercial US operators.

[Ntrails]

> I think a closer estimate is probably total annual operational costs divided by total shouts, (£18 MM / 2,000) or about £9,000 per shout.

That's a more useful estimate than merely the flight costs, agree - though the fixed operation costs don't change much in an 1800 vs a 2100 callout scenario.

> Still an order of magnitude less than the commercial US operators.

It's wild!

[ano-ther]

Those are more sane numbers (unless you go by helicopter across the US).

Also found this intriguing in your source:

> London’s Air Ambulance crew made history in 1993 by performing the world’s first successful pre-hospital open-heart surgery at the roadside.

[gosub100]

There are stories where the air ambulance sues patients who are still in ICU because getting paid depends on being first in line to file the lawsuit.

[pshirshov]

Personally, I've never seen anything like this. Usually it's billing company who sues, not providers dierctly - again, from my experience.

[gosub100]

That's like saying "the fall doesn't kill you, it's the sudden stop".

[pshirshov]

I meant that I haven't seen such early lawsuits initiated by whoever.