US · guidance
CMS Pub. 100-02, ch. 10, § 10.4.6
Special Payment Limitations
If a determination is made to order transport by air ambulance, but ground ambulance
transport would have sufficed, payment for the air ambulance transport is based on the
amount payable for ground ambulance transport.
If the air transport was medically appropriate (that is, ground transportation was
contraindicated, and the beneficiary required air transport to a hospital), but the
beneficiary could have been treated at a hospital nearer than the one to which they were
transported, the air transport payment is limited to the rate for the distance from the point
of pickup to that nearer hospital.
History
(Rev. 133, Issued: 10-22-10, Effective: 01-01-11, Implementation: 01-03-11)
Provenance
- Source
- cms.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-08-25
- Edition
- iom-2026-08-25
- Content hash
d184fcbb9f1a205c4d640bda1aa949ff212fcb686c365715169b350d2a9399f2
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.