Why an ambulance ride costs almost $2,000

You’re sick, and you just need to get to the hospital. So you call 911, and get an ambulance, right? Well, maybe not. Because that ambulance just cost you almost $2,000 - which is why this skit, Uber or Ambulance, by Ian Goldstein went viral. I want you to know two things about this number. First, it’s obviously up from just a few years ago.

Second, how much you pay is directly correlated with who owns your ambulance. Now, the most comprehensive study we have on this is from 2017, almost 10 years ago. But even then, private-sector ambulances were 50% more expensive than public-sector ones. That study specifically isolated private equity as a driving factor in this massive increase in costs.

The US education fund published a report that puts it best: “The problem is that patients generally don’t choose their ambulance service. They call 9-1-1, and the dispatcher sends out a responder.” And you might think that regulations would protect us against this, and Congress did try with the No Surprises Act to cover you against surprise billing from emergency medical services. But it did NOT cover ground ambulances.

The result of this is that ambulances have the highest out-of-network billing rate in the country, totaling $129 million. And again, that data is not current, it’s from 2017 figures. We, as a country, as a people, are likely paying FAR more.

Now, I want to bring the focus back to private equity. It’s not just that private equity is making things more expensive - they’re also cutting costs and giving you worse services - and when it comes to health, the cost is literally death. And all of that is why, if you’re sick, before you’ve even gotten to the hospital - you just paid $2,000.