Ambulance rides often stick patients with high bills

When it comes to surprise medical bills, ambulances are often the most shocking

Roman Barshay had a bad fall while visiting out-of-town friends. Suffering chest and back pains, he took an ambulance to a hospital four miles away.

Barshay was in for a nasty surprise — a bill for $3,660 just for the ambulance ride. That is $915 per mile. Barshay’s insurance covered nearly half, but he was still on the hook for nearly $1,900.

The ambulance was operated by a private company, and it was out of network for his insurance plan.

“The cost is outrageous,” he told California Healthline.

Barshay’s story is all too common. In 2014, patients in the United States with private health insurance took more than a half-million ambulance trips, and more than a quarter were billed out-of-network, according to a recent study.

Betsy Imholz, special projects director at the Consumers Union, has collected more than 700 surprise medical bills, and at least one quarter involve ambulances.

“It’s a huge problem,” Imholz told The Washington Post.

The Federal Government does not regulate ambulance fees for patients with private insurance, California Healthline reports. With about 14,000 companies providing ambulance service in the United States, the cost can vary widely from town to town.

A new California law is designed to protect consumers from surprise medical bills from out-out-network providers. At least 21 states have similar laws, but only six are considered comprehensive, according to a Commonwealth Fund report.

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