ALERT strives to keep service affordable
<p>Flight Paramedic Mike York can be seen in the front window of the ALERT helicopter as the crew demonstrates how they would search for beacons worn by people caught in an avalanche on Friday morning, January 22, over Kila. (Brenda Ahearn/Daily Inter Lake)</p>
Dr. Jack Davis was making his rounds at Kalispell General Hospital when a nurse pulled him aside and said there had been another logging accident. It was in a remote area along the Hungry Horse reservoir and crews were working to evacuate the unconscious man.
Along with the hospital’s only neurologist, they walked to the seldom-used hospital heliport behind a laundry and maintenance building and waited.
The logger arrived strapped to the outside of a Forest Service helicopter in a wire basket, covered by a tarp to block the wind. It was 1975 and the scene was familiar to the workers.
It had been more than two hours since the man’s accident. It was too late to save his life, Davis said, who later became the medical director.
“I know that they did everything they could for him, and we did too,” he said. “But we knew there had to be a better way.”
That death led to the first rural-based hospital helicopter rescue service in the United States.
Desperate for a solution, Davis worked with the pilot who picked up the injured man, emergency officials, hospital employees and the logging community to create ALERT, or Advanced Life-support and Emergency Rescue Team.
Kalispell Regional Healthcare is celebrating ALERT’s 40th anniversary this year, which will end with a fundraising banquet Saturday night.
“It was an energetic time,” Davis said about starting the program. “Medical workers around the country were learning together how to make this tool better. It was such a new concept. It’s almost common now.”
The Federal Aviation Administration reported that as of 2014, 75 air ambulance companies operated roughly 1,500 helicopters in the United States.
In Montana, there are 13 licensed air ambulances, according to a state study of ambulance memberships.
As the industry has grown, so have patients’ bills for the service.
According to a work group created by Montana’s Economic Affairs Interim Committee to discuss air-ambulance issues, states lost the ability to regulate the cost of air-ambulance service when the airline industry was deregulated in the 1970s. Last week, an attempt to regulate air-ambulance services supported by Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., failed in the U.S. Senate.
Of the air ambulances in Montana, seven are not-for-profit, including ALERT.
Tony Patterson, the chief administrative officer of Kalispell Regional Healthcare, testified in front of the economic committee that the hospital operates ALERT at a loss.
“The ALERT service is not carried on with the purpose to be a money-maker,” he said during testimony. “As demonstrated by its history, it is carried on to meet the community need.”
He said in total, not just with the ALERT service, the hospital lost roughly $2.5 million last year.
Hospital officials said they couldn’t provide an estimate on the average cost a patient pays for the service because of variables such as the type of flight or an individual’s insurance.
Patterson said if an insurance company or employer-sponsored benefits plan has a provider agreement with the hospital covering air-ambulance services, the patient is only responsible for the plan’s co-payment and deductible obligations.
The hospital also sponsors a membership program that provides members with ALERT air transport financial assistance. Membership for an individual is $59 and $100 for a family. However, if an emergency takes place, there’s no guarantee the patient would be picked up by ALERT, but instead could be picked up by any air-ambulance program in Montana.
“We believe that ALERT has competitive rates with other hospital-sponsored or contracted air-ambulance services in the state,” Patterson said.
He said one way the hospital has managed to keep its prices low is through its annual fundraising banquet. Last year’s event secured more than $100,000 for the service.
To date, ALERT has made more than 16,000 flights and has saved roughly 1,500 lives, according to hospital officials.
Davis said the service has always relied on the community, from the pilot who helped get the program off the ground to the logger who took out a loan to help purchase the hospital’s first helicopter.
Davis said he couldn’t have imagined the impact ALERT would have, or that one day it would save his son’s life after a car accident.
“So many people worked hard to make this happen, and we’ve seen it really pay off,” he said. “Without the community as a backup, the hospital never would have been able to continue this for 40 years.”
Tickets for the fundraising banquet are $300 per couple. To purchase tickets, contact Lori Alsbury at 406-752-1710 or Jim Oliverson at 406-756-3977. For more information about ALERT, go to https://www.kalispellregional.org/krmc/services/emergency-services/a-l-e-r-t-air-ambulance.
Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.