United States: Airline Deregulation Act Preempts WV’s Attempt to Regulate Air Ambulance Charges in Comp Claims

Continuing a line of similar decisions reached in various courts over the past year or so, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, 49 U.S.C. § 41713(b)(1), expressly preempted West Virginia's efforts to regulate the prices, routes, and services of air ambulance companies. Accordingly, an air ambulance company had U.S. Const. art. III standing to challenge the West Virginia Office of the Insurance Commissioner (OIC) fee schedule, which set default rates of air ambulance services reimbursement for the state workers' compensation system, as the challenged provisions set a default rate lower than what the company would otherwise charge and prevented the company from billing the patient for the difference.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis 

See Air Evac EMS, Inc. v. Cheatham, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 34498 (4th Cir., Dec. 11, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 94.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law