I think you are confused. Nothing in the document you quoted provides rates for air ambulance services. The prices quoted are for ground services that provide patient care to patients who are ultimately transported via helicopter. It normally costs about $12,000 per flight for operations costs. The quotes in the link you provided would make air medical services a money losing adventure in Connecticut.
There are two air medical services in Connecticut: Hartford Hospital’s LifeStar and Yale-New Haven’s SkyHealth, which is a joint venture with Northwell Health. LifeStar flies a nurse/respiratory therapist combo and SkyHealth flies a nurse/paramedic combo. SkyHealth flies two EC-135’s and LifeStar flies 2 EC-145’s along with 1 EC-135 based in MA. LifeStar 3 is operated by AirMethods. SkyHealth is operated by MedTrans.
Air medical services have successfully used the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 to get out of any rate setting by state balance billing acts. Likewise, it pretty much is grounds for the federal government to not be able to dictate their maximum rates. The government would have to create a new separate law to eliminate HEMS from the ADA in order for rate setting/balance billing laws to apply to them.
I’ve been away from CT for 12 years now, but I still stay in touch with quite a few key EMS players there.
Skyhealth started in 2015, guess my info is a little old (I left the state in 2014). The 'ol Life Star (I refuse to capitalize it because it'll change my autocorrect of those two words FOREVER) was the only game in town back in around the financial crisis when I was most connected to the issue. I used to be a respiratory therapist, and flew on Life Star once when they were looking to recruit me (I don't know if they still do, but they used to allow you to spend time in the command center and to do a ride along if you were interested in joining and were light enough). A certain Hawai'ian shirt wearing madman of that bunch encouraged me to give it a shot, I was light (145 pounds) and seemed bright and eager for some action, the kind of kid who would get bored in respiratory unless I was practicing to the limits of my license. That observation would later prove to be prescient, hence my medical degree.
In my time learning the ropes, they went over safety protocols, funding issues (which were great at the time), and the button not to press on my comms if I decided to have a panic attack midflight lest I broadcast it to the whole state. I guess I was mistaken by the state setting fees legally. The company operating the service worked with the state to set a fair price though, even if legislation was absent. This probably had something to do with the regular funding subsidies provided to the service in the annual state budget, and with the overall costs to patients being pretty affordable for the service provided. Naturally my first flight, with the legendary Pilot 1 no less, was a disaster. For reference, everybody had a number, and I knew the 3 surviving RTs from the first batch of 4. Hawaii was one of them, though he'd since decided he wanted a more quiet life of intubating in the ED, as was the director of my respiratory program, who also had the good sense to get out. Horrific pediatric trauma, the sort of thing you never forget, even the veteran crew was pretty shaken. Between that bloody mess and the flight that went down making me think about how on an hour-for-hour basis air ambulance work is arguably the most dangerous job in the nation, I picked a less exciting path.
I will say, even if most air ambulance services are corrupt as all hell with their billing practices, LS always seemed ethical and didn't have a bad reputation in the slightest. Their mission always seemed more public service and less about making piles of cash. A second service in the state is worrying, given that the existing one seemed to have the right way of operating, both professionally and ethically, and I worry the only reason this new service popped up is that they heard there was a fresh market waiting to be exploited.
