EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14/CBS4) — The company that provides El Paso’s newest medical air transport service refuses to give an average price for how much it would cost to airlift patients.

The El Paso Fire Department and Air Methods have partnered on a five-year contract to provide a new air rescue service in the El Paso area.

The new partnership will create Fire STAR (Shock and Trauma Air Rescue), a “dedicated air rescue service to improve emergency medical care in the community,” Air Methods said in a statement.

The service will help transport intensive care patients to remote areas such as Fabens or Red Sands.

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Outside of the new service, however, KFOX14 asked the company Air Methods how much each flight would cost a patient.

When asked several times about the average amount patients might be charged for flying to a medical facility, Denisse Coffman, vice president of communications at Air Methods, did not provide a direct answer as to the amount.

“It’s obviously in the thousands, I can’t give you an average because every shipment is different,” Coffman said.

KFOX14 then repeatedly asked for an average value and whether the cost would be hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, and again Coffman refused to give a direct answer.

“It’s impossible to give an average simply because each person’s circumstances are very different… It’s impossible to give an average,” Coffman replied.

Coffman explained that a Texas law called the No Surprise Act, passed in 2022, protects patients from surprise medical bills from air ambulance services.

So when a patient is billed a fee, the company contacts the patient’s insurance company rather than the patient directly.

If a patient does not have health insurance, Air Methods will contact them directly to discuss an appropriate payment plan.

Despite this option, Air Methods continued to refuse to directly disclose the average cost of patients transported by air.

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KFOX14 then reached out to other air rescue companies such as Aerocare and Transaero to see if they could provide an average or estimated cost of air transport.

As soon as KFOX14 receives their response, you will find the update here.

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