$42,000 helicopter ride! **update of sorts in OP**

Yowzers! Absolutely start with the insurance company. If that doesn't work, where did it happen at? Could you file a claim against their insurance?

They should (I hope!) have liability insurance with medical coverage.  Do they know you fell there?

Yikes! I'd call your state Attorney General, while fighting with the insurance company.

I'd also be combing through the fine print in my policy.

Is the insurance through an employer? Maybe HR could help?

Follow up your call in writing!!! Insurance companies deny anything not 'required' to be covered first shot because approx %50 of people won't file an appeal in writing. They can ignore phone calls all day. They can tell you everything you want to hear in a phone call and not follow thru. Most policies even state that what they say on the phone is not necessarily correct ( lol ) but if you want them to pay a claim they have denied you have to file a written appeal.

SMH at $42K (Not at you OP, just at all of it)



I hate it, but I don't see what else you can do.

The AG acts as a consumer advocate. They may not investigate this issue, but they will direct you to the proper agency. I had a problem once and they directed me to the Commerce Dept., who did help me.

Where was the OP taken advantage of by the helicopter flight?  This was the only way that she could be transported to the hospital.  Insurance companies always try not to pay, however, sometimes ambulance helicopter rides are not included.

It is important for everyone to know the details of their coverage.  The vacation rental home should have been notified as soon as possible after the accident.  Then the OP's Insurance would deal with the Vac home rental insurance.

Hopefully there is still time.

That's terrible SabrinaP. Hope you can get it sorted. I'm very grateful that here in Auckland we have a rescue helicopter service that's partly government funded and also supported by private business - so there's no charge for patients who are evacuated in cases of medical emergency.

We have experience with this. I sent a pm with details.

It's not the AG's office. Every state has an Insurance Commissioner that has authority to regulate insurance companies. They all have a consumer complaint dept. I would start the process with them as well. If this is a self funded employer plan though there isn't a whole lot they can do.

No advice but I feel ya! DH was life flighted for a heart attack in November and our insurance has yet to pay. We just keep going back & forth. It's definitely frustrating.

I'd start by calling the financial office of the insurance company. They may be able to tell you why it was denied. Sometimes it's just a coding error or a problem where all the paperwork wasn't turned in together. If the insurance company and the air ambulance company have an agreement in place and the air ambulance company didn't follow procedure either at the time of your injury or in the paperwork, you may not be liable for any part of the bill.

When DH had his stroke, he had to be transported to 2 different hospitals in one day. The same ambulance company handled both transports and they billed separately for each transport. When I got a bill from the company, I called my insurance company and asked what I should do with it. They were really surprised that the transport company had billed me because they had an agreement with my insurance and should have billed them directly. I called the ambulance company and gave them DH's insurance info again, as well as the fax number where the insurance company said they should send the bill.

Over the next 5 months, I got several more copies of the bill from the transport company and each time I reached out to them with the info from the insurance company. On one occasion, I stayed on the line with my insurance company while they called the transport company and asked them to send the documents to them. After 6 months, the transport company failed to bill the insurance company. I received a letter from my insurance company about a mo the later telling me that they had never received any bill from the transport company so, under the agreement between the two companies, I was not responsible for any portion of the bill, not even a copay or coinsurance amount.

You may want to file a claim against the rental cabin's insurance right away. There is a limited time for you to file a claim after an injury. I've received calls and letters from my insurance company any time one of us was injured in a way that could possibly be covered by our homeowners' insurance. Each time I had to detail how and where whoever had been injured. I hate to admit what klutzes we are!

Marcy

I am pretty sure my hmo does not cover helicopter transport. If I got such a bill and could not work it out, and they would not take a monthly payment forever, I would need to look into medical bankruptcy.

Yes, you really need to lawyer up. We had a $49,000 bill from a helicopter flight when my two year old son suffered a horrible burn on a camping trip. You will not get anywhere without a lawyer. In our case, insurance only want to pay $3500 of that bill even though we had met our deductible for the year, and after fighting the denial, the insurance company won. We took it to our state's insurance regulator and was told while the insurance company's refusal to pay was not ethical, it was not illegal. Our lawyer was able to get the helicopter company to settle for $8000 from us in addition to what insurance did pay. Without him pushing for us, we would have been responsible for every penny.