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Even with the insurance you have right now, you could be responsible for an expensive ground or air ambulance bill that can be financially devastating. If you think you're fully covered, think again. Most insurance providers, including Medicare, the VA, TRICARE, Medicare Advantage and Supplement plans, and private health insurance do not always fully cover emergency transport costs. You'd be astounded at how often you may be forced to pay out of pocket for a ground or air ambulance bill. And if you live outside a large city or in a more suburban or rural area, you should be aware the further away you live from a hospital that provides major trauma care, the more expensive those ambulance costs could be and the higher your risk of needing an air ambulance to get to the hospital to get the life-saving care you need. The average air ambulance bill is over $50,000. There were over 550,000 air ambulance flights in the United States last year. That's more than one every minute. An unexpected medical bill like that could seriously hurt your finances, ruining your quality of life now or destroying your retirement dreams, especially if you're on a fixed income. In fact, CNBC reported that unpaid medical costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the US. That's why you need MASA, the affordable way to protect yourself from potentially catastrophic ambulance bills. Once you have MASA and an emergency happens, MASA covers the emergency ambulance costs that your primary insurance does not cover, including your copays and deductibles. You have total peace of mind to know that MASA has the emergency ambulance bill covered. - Well, you know, I was mayor of Kerrville and we're about 60 miles away from a major medical center. But I had a heart procedure here, they closed it up, and sent me in an ambulance to San Antonio. I woke up and they were getting ready to do a quadruple bypass. I later received a bill from the City of Kerrville for the ambulance service to San Antonio. I forwarded that bill to MASA and MASA paid it. If I didn't have MASA, a ambulance to San Antonio would have cost me around 3, 4, $5,000. You don't know when something's going to happen. You don't know whether it's going to be a car accident, a serious illness, and you better take care of it now because when that happens and you don't know it's going to happen, it's going to be too late. Peace of mind comes knowing that if something happened, MASA's going to take care of us and we don't have to worry about it. Worry causes stress. I don't have the stress 'cause I don't have to worry about it. MASA takes care of it for me. - If you have Medicare or private health insurance, you might be curious as to why you could be responsible for such high ambulance bills. You would expect that you'd be covered. However, Medicare or private health insurance may deny your emergency medical transportation claim for many reasons, such as if your benefits weren't coordinated correctly, if you didn't obtain authorization before, or if they deemed that the reason for your emergency ambulance was not a medical necessity. Denied ambulance service claims is a scary reality. In fact, the official Medicare booklet tells you what to do if Medicare doesn't cover your ambulance service. For example, if your medical emergency isn't deemed serious enough, your ambulance ride claim can be denied. If you could have had some other type of transportation to the hospital, your claim can be denied. If you could walk, even seriously injured, your claim can be denied. Medicare or your private insurance can deem that your emergency transport was not medically necessary and deny your ambulance claim, leaving you stuck with a large and unexpected bill. And even if your ambulance claim is not denied, you could still be on the hook for a big bill because of deductibles and copays. That's why it makes so much sense to become a MASA member. If you have a medical emergency and Medicare or private insurance denies your ambulance claim based on medical necessity, MASA will cover that claim. If your emergency air ambulance flight is denied by your insurer, you could be liable for the entire bill, which could cost over $50,000. But MASA will cover that claim. Let's say your emergency ambulance claim is paid for by Medicare or private insurance. There is still a copay or deductible you owe. MASA will pay for that, leaving its members with zero out-of-pocket costs. Here's the bottom line: with MASA, you have total peace of mind to know that no matter what happens, MASA has the emergency ground and air ambulance bills covered. - My husband got real sick and he started having seizures. I'm a retired nurse so pretty much knew what was going on, so I had to call 911 'cause I couldn't get him out of this seizure that he was in and they was there in about three minutes. So they said, "Well, hey, you want to get him to the hospital,