Air Ambulance From Costa Rica to the United States

Why Costa Rica catches people out

Somewhere between 70,000 and 120,000 Americans live in Costa Rica, and around 1.5 million visit each year. Most of them are in the Central Valley, Santa Ana, or along the Guanacaste coast around Tamarindo, Nosara and Flamingo.

Costa Rican medicine is genuinely good, which is why the country has a medical tourism industry at all. That is not the problem. The problem is coverage and geography.

Medicare pays nothing here

Medicare and Medicaid do not cover care or transport outside the United States. For a retiree on a Pensionado visa this is the single most expensive thing they do not know. The CAJA covers residents who pay into it, and it covers them reasonably, but it is a public system with waiting lists and it will not fly anyone home.

Commercial plans and expatriate policies often do cover repatriation, but only when it is authorised in advance. Travel insurance bought with a plane ticket usually has a ceiling well below the cost of an air ambulance.

Guanacaste is further from a hospital than it feels

This is the part visitors underestimate. The beach towns of Guanacaste are hours by road from the hospitals in San José that can handle a serious cardiac case, a head injury or a complex orthopaedic trauma. The road is winding and in the rainy season it is slow.

Liberia (LIR) is the practical departure field for the whole northern Pacific coast and it is close to the resort areas, which means a patient can often be flown out of Guanacaste directly rather than driven to the capital first. For patients already in San José, we use Juan Santamaría (SJO) or Tobías Bolaños.

Where we take patients

Miami and Fort Lauderdale are around three hours away and hold the specialist centres most patients need. Houston and Dallas for patients from Texas, Atlanta, and onward to any US destination or the patient’s own hospital. We also fly within Costa Rica and to Panama City when the clinical answer is closer than the United States.

Free with qualifying insurance, fixed price without

If the plan qualifies and the transport is medically necessary, the flight can cost you nothing out of pocket. We verify the benefits at no charge, document medical necessity with the treating physician, obtain the authorization before the aircraft is released, and bill the insurer under a signed assignment of benefits.

Where there is no coverage, we quote one fixed all-inclusive price agreed in writing before you commit: aircraft, flight crew, medical crew, equipment, ground ambulance at both ends, landing, handling and permits. No invoice afterwards for extras.

For hotels, resorts and residential communities

If you manage a resort, a residential development or a tour operation in Guanacaste or the Central Valley, you will eventually have a guest or a resident who needs to be moved. Having the call arranged in advance — who to phone, what information to have ready, who authorises the cost — turns a bad day into a managed one. We will set that up with you before you need it.

Licensing and authority

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance operates as Med Jets USA, Inc. under Florida Department of Health EMS Service Provider licence AIR9505, status clear, verifiable on the State of Florida public licence register. In Mexico we operate as Med Jets S.A. de C.V. under AOC MTS/2015. Jet Rescue Air Ambulance is an indirect air carrier; all flights are operated by FAA Part 135 certificated direct air carriers or their foreign equivalents. Flying patients since 1994.

If it has already happened

Call us anyway. Send a photo of the insurance card front and back, the patient name and date of birth, the hospital they are in, and a short description of the medical situation. If there is no passport, say so — it is a smaller obstacle than most people think. You will reach a mission coordinator, not a call centre, and the benefits review costs nothing.