By EMS1 Staff
DES MOINES, Iowa — A man is disputing an ambulance bill after he was charged $3,100 for being transported from one hospital to another last summer.
Lon Wadle, 59, was hospitalized last summer for two weeks for sarcoidosis, reported the Des Moines Register. Doctors at Iowa Methodist Medical Center, hesitant to confirm the diagnosis, told him it would be best to transfer to another hospital to be treated.
“The doctors said they didn’t want to discharge him because the wait to get in would have been around two months if he had been released,” his wife, Carla, said. “They sent him to Mayo in an ambulance with his IV still in his arm.”
Wadle was transferred via ambulance to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, but said he was not given a choice; his insurance refused to cover the transport.
Wadle said he expected the transport to be covered since his doctor ordered it. Since then, Wadle has been battling with his insurance company and the hospital to have the transport covered.
Wadle’s insurance said the hospital hadn’t documented the trip as a medical necessity; they also said Wadle did not check with the insurance company before transport. In order for his transport to have been covered, the transport needed to be classified as an emergency.
“Any provider should check with any insurance company before a transport is made to make sure the patient’s insurance benefits cover it — this is especially true with non-emergent ambulance transfers,” Traci McBee, a Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield official, said.
A third-party is reviewing Wadle’s case.