“It Was a 15-Minute Ride” — Medivac Company Charges Woman $69,000 for Helicopter Ride to ER

A woman who ended up boarding a helicopter for a medical evacuation was shocked at the amount of money the transportation company was charging her for its service.

Shauntay Aichner (@shauntayaichner) uploaded a series of videos detailing the "second-degree burns" she sustained that necessitated the Medivac.

In her most-watched video of the bunch, which accrued over 12.2 million views, she reveals what the Medivac company was charging her for the ride.

"Oh nothing just to see if my helicopter bill to be airlifted to the emergency room. And the ride was like 15 minutes. Maybe, if that? And they didn't give me no medicine or nothing. They literally just took me from point A to point B. And didn't talk or nothing."

She continued, "You know I would think it'd be maybe a few thousand dollars. You know what I'm saying? 20 is like the max up there that I would think, like 15 really pushing it. You know?" the TikToker says into the camera.

Her intonation suggests that the amount of money she was charged for the helicopter airlift, however, is much more than that. "Y'all wanna see how much this bill is? And I don't have insurance, just keep that in mind I don't have any insurance," she says.

The screenshot of the helicopter airlift bill states as much. The receipt is from Medical Lifeteam, which writes: "Add your insurance. We do not currently have an insurance card on file for you. Adding your insurance could change your total balance."

Beneath that message are two dialog boxes, one that allows patients to state that they don't have insurance, and another, which is blocked by a video of Shauntay's head that is presumably for folks who do.

After zooming out and panning her head to the center of the image, she reveals that she's been charged $68,815. "Sixty nine thousand dollars?" she asks, incredulously after showing the charges.

There were numerous TikTokers who responded to Shauntay's video and said that they, too, couldn't believe the cost of the rides either. However, one person pointed out that private helicopter rides that take double the amount of time cost significantly less than that.

"What’s funny is you can literally book a 30-min helicopter ride for under $200 so who they playing with?" they wrote. NYC dwellers may be familiar with Blade helicopter service, which charges folks $195 per seat for a five-minute ride from JFK Airport into Manhattan.

Even if you're trying to get an on-demand plane ride from East 23rd Street to the Hamptons, it'll still cost you significantly less than the $68,815 helicopter flight that Shauntay found herself on.

Different parts of the country appear to have different laws when it pertains to helicopter airlift rides. According to the San Francisco Examiner, the cost of emergency choppers in the state of California are free, as long as you're being picked up by the California Highway Patrol's aircraft.

However, this certainly isn't the case everywhere. And you don't need to search too long and hard on the internet in order to find some financial horror stories involving medical helicopter evacuations.

Redditors in this r/healthinsurance posted some of their own anecdotes involving medivacs. Like this one person whose friend needed to get a ride two states away. Despite going on a ride that sounded like it was significantly longer than the one mentioned in Shauntay's video, they were charged less money than she was.

Not that the figure was any more palatable: "A friend of mine had an accident in the Rocky Mountains and got airlifted to the nearest hospital that could deal with his injuries. It was two states away. $35,000," they wrote.

Someone else echoed: "I work in healthcare and have patients who told me their helicopter ride from one hospital to another in the same health system, IN THE SAME CITY with a 10-minute helicopter ride (much much much longer driving), cost him 35,000."

This other Reddit user shared how thankful they were that they purchased traveler's insurance — otherwise, the $550 they ended up paying for their medivac would've ultimately cost them a whopping $53,000.

As for Shauntay's dilemma, one TikToker recommended that she immediately get on a health insurance plan that would help her out with that Medivac claim.

They wrote: "Girl u have 3 months go get on some type of insurance so they will pay that balance. And make sure this is covered u see your plan."