CoxHealth Closes Branson AirEvac Base Because of Medicaid Cuts

CoxHealth has shut down its air evacuation service in Branson because a rising number of uninsured patients can not pay for the costly, but sometimes life-saving flights.

Cox officials say the 2005 cuts to Medicaid have dramatically increased the amount of uninsured patients it serves.

Watch my KY3 News @ 10 report HERE.

According to Cox officials, the decision was mostly financial. Vice President of Clinical Services Tyler Hedden says the contractor, AirMethods, notified the hospital of its problems a few weeks ago.

According to Hedden, the problems were two-fold: AirMethods was not getting reimbursed at the rate it expected to for care of Medicaid patients and uninsured patients could not make payments for the service.

Hedden says 70 percent of the patients that the helicopter served were on Medicare, Medicaid or were uninsured.

Cox had offered the service in Branson since March of 2004.

Spokesperson Cora Scott says St. John's hasn't done a specific study on how the uninsured have impacted its helicopter service in Branson, but did point out that they are seeing a big increase in patients without health coverage.

"It's been a definite concern, especially over the last year," Scott says. "We're losing $500,000 a month due to uninsured or self-paid patients. Overall we're definitely seeing it."

Still, Scott says St. John's is committed to keeping its emergency helicopter service in Branson.

Hedden says a rising number of uninsured patients is something every hospital in Missouri is dealing with. He says unless the state figures out a way to get more Missourians covered, Cox does not expect to bring back its air-evac service to Branson in the future.

**Clarification 2:15 P.M.** . . . Chris Whitley from Cox called to clarify that Cox would still serve the Branson area with its AirCare out of Springfield. He wanted to make sure people understood that Cox is just closing its base that serves Branson. "We'll be flying over the same turf down there from Springfield," Whitley says. "Now we may not be able to get there in time, but it's entirely possible we'll be called, especially if other aircraft are out on calls. Frankly, we expect that," he says.

(To be clear, the video in the piece is of the Springfield AirCare unit. I've also changed the headline for clarity.)