But opening more.

Sorry your company is not doing good.

As you are all away, Air Methods is in the process of closing up to 18 bases today.  The list we have been able to develop so far indicates the following bases are being closed:

1                     Kerrville TX

2             ;        Pleasanton TX

3                     St. Joeseph Mo

4                     Dodge, KA

5                     Salina KA

6                     Portalis, NM

7                     Colby KS

8                     FW Fesno CA

9                     FW Havasu CA

10                 Wausau WI

 

We are still working on identifying the remaining 8.

Wausau? thats a hospital base program. AMC hartford WI closed awhile back. 

With the no surprises act ,lower reimbursement rates,   cost of fuel , labor and just about anything with a price tag, why would anyone be surprised.

Any one of these things could cause issues with growth and sustainability, but when you get a tsunami of events it's inevitable.

It won't just be AMC , the whole Industry will probably see 30% cut, for the business model to make sense let alone money.

"whole Industry will probably see 30% cut" Not if you are an in network provider ! Serves them right screwing people with 70-90k bills

EOB and what people actually pay are two very different things. AMC hasn't been balance billing for years. 

I would tend to agree with you regarding Air Methods, if they were a lean company.  They are not.  Grossly overmanaged is an understatement.  And worse yet, the ineptitude is at the highest levels seen in my 15 years yet.  

The industry will see some consolidation, but with Air Methods I hold zero sympathy so long as there is all these useless managers doing nothing but making the job harder!  

With all those manager's bonuses... then the whole Motient, and Spright things; not the right investment for a company that has it's own close margins and wasteful spending

Upper management would not listen when warned about the balance billing (surprise billing)  but the brain trusts like L E O, thought they had all the answers.  Pushing flight crews. When you do that they rebel. 

TONS of weather turndowns that are in completely safe weather that don't get any mention by management, yet a flight at close to 14 hours can't be turned down without calling management for approval (and, typically, they "urge" to make you take the flight).

Pushing a flight at 14 hours is ALWAYS a safety risk (there are flight hour duty limits FOR A REASON; hence the FARs), yet when TONS of aircraft are out flying (especially the competition) as weather starts improving, medcrew don't want to go because there's yellow/green on the radar, the flight categories are all showing blue, etc. and MANAGEMENT SAYS NOTHING. 

I got it, people have done stupid IIMC, but I'm not talking about skosh weather here, i.e. 10 mile vis, ceilings are a solid 1500 or higher for a 100 mile radius (non-mountainous) and improving.  And management says nothing, but a flight is planned at the 14 hour mark and management says GO!!!

As a professional pilot, me and my crew for the shift get to go or no/go. If I get a flight request that will take me over 14 hours I turn it down. Now if I slept for 6 hours while on duty or sat around all day watching TV and get a late flight that looks like I will get back to base on time I take it. Should the crew get delayed and I go over 14 hours, no big deal. The FAR's allow for this. However if I had 4 flights during the shift and a late request look like I maybe pushing 14 hours I say no. It's all on me and no body can make me go against my will. End of story, let it go. 

When your medical crews take a crew rest after one flight, or the sister base nearby turns everything down for duty time, and the competition sweeps in and captures those flights, what do you expect? 

This is just the beginning of a shift in the industry. The big losers are the patients who need care but because of the reduced number of resources nothing will be available.

A great idea whose time has passed.

To be scared as cats and never trust pilots so there ya have it 

This is just the beginning of a shift in the industry. The big losers are the patients who need care but because of the reduced number of resources nothing will be available.

El Paso, TX- FW

Gila Bend, AZ

The big losers are the patients who need care but because of the reduced number of resources nothing will be available.

I don't want to see any one out of work but we all know that the above is not the crisis you'd have us believe. This industry is long over due to self correct. About one in ten patients actually need air transport. Everyone went by ground in the past. A town of 4,000 obviously doesn't need two helicopters, if any at all. A positve is that we'll see fewer of our friends and coworkers being killed in crashes where they were flying passengers that should have been driven to the hospital safely, efficiently, and much more economically.

Hire more ambulance drivers, give them some more medical training than they get now, and then pay them WAY better than they get now.  For real, they get paid crap, can't sleep at base, and work crazier shifts than any HAA medcrew. 

Will do WAY more good for society than HAA.

Tell me any location that doesn't have an ambulance shortage.  And I totally agree with the above post but think it's more like 2 out of 10 that are actually critical care transports.  

AMC's Hawaii fixed wing base closed? They don't have rotor in hawaii right?

Do we have a final count yet?  If so, that would be almost 100 pilots to fill the over 200 openings. 

I remember it was 18 that closed back in 2019.  

1. Verde

2. 2nd in Show Low

3. Winslow

4.  TBD

Holding a grudge while abandoning communities = Defunding Tomorrow!!

And tell us how much she really cares about everyone. LOL

are they supposed to keep unprofitable bases open just because of your feelings? some real dumbasses out there

since she runs the company and if you work there, it may be of some interest.

when you start reading it the moment it hits your inbox

"And if you ask me personally, do we need 900 air medical helicopters to serve this country, I'd say probably not, maybe 500, 600 could do well, but it’s an open market, these are – we don’t have certificate of need restrictions. And so, therefore, there's going to be the inefficiency of competition."

times and still nobody cares what Aaron Todd said

Many pilots are stuck in the past 

Cause we really need 1000-1200 hems bases doing 10-15 flights a month. Many who don't need to fly and flight crews that don't want to actually go fly. 1 per shift or they are out service fatigue. 

Loosing the med crew educational campaign eh. Stay in your own lane 

nope

got out long ago. 

just watching the right Sizing that's coming. 

What the CEO's don't take into consideration is that if you go from say 900 helicopters to 600 helicopters, the call volume doesn't change.

So suddenly those bases are taking on the average 50% more flights.   You go from a 30 flight volume to 45 flight volume with no change in income???

That won't wash well with crews or pilots.   This is what you are seeing now.   

These companies are closing the less profitable bases to cannibalize the pilots and crews to fill in on the more profitable higher volume bases.   But what they are also seeing is a mass exodus from the system.

They didn't count on crews and pilots leaving in droves.  Which is why both AMC and GMR have 150 openings and 216 openings respectively.

That's what happens when you crunch numbers wihout considering human behavior.   Bad management and bad executives lead to a bad industry.  

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-18/air-methods-earnings-plunge-58-on-billing-law-cost-pressures