(Fremont County, WY) – Classic Air Medical, a local air ambulance service provider, was recently acquired by Salt Lake City-based not-for-profit Intermountain Healthcare. The process began in April and is now finalized, according to July 2nd announcement from Intermountain.
This does not impact the current local or statewide air ambulance services, explained Chad Bowdre, Classic Air Medical’s Director of Customer Relations. There is minimal overlap in areas the two organizations serve, none in Wyoming, so the current bases and employees remain the same.
Classic’s upper management will also maintain their roles including Tony Henderson as chief executive officer. The company was founded by Henderson’s father, Mark, over 30 years ago.
Selling Classic Air Medical was in the works for over a year, according to Bowdre.
“We were in a super fortunate position to not having to be sold and were able to pick our buyer.”
The pressure was being placed on them to sell by two other larger air ambulance providers, he continued. Classic was already in discussions with Intermountain about working together when things started to line up and make sense for them to purchase.
The offer from Intermountain made the most sense to them with their philosophies and missions aligning.
“It couldn’t have turned out any better,” said Bowdre. “People can be comfortable; it’s Classic and we still have the same big heart for our communities that we always have.”
One of the things they are looking forward to with this acquisition is having better IT to serve patients.
As of July 1st, air ambulance services providers are once again allowed to sell memberships in Wyoming, Classic has chosen not to do so.
They revamped and evaluated the billing process since the membership selling was stopped in Wyoming last year. In conjunction with getting better at maximizing insurance payments, they have been able to minimize what patients are paying out-of-pocket for the service, Bowdre shared.
Now with the average patient expense being ~$200, they do not think selling memberships is a necessary annual expense on community members that have no guarantee of it being used.
“Everybody is going to be taken care of is our philosophy,” Bowdre noted.
Learn more about Intermountain Health by clicking here and Classic Air Medical by clicking here.