3rd DCA: DWC Can't Set Reimbursement Rates for Air Ambulance Services

In a disappointing decision for the insurance industry, Texas’ 3rd District Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court’s decision allowing the Division of Workers’ Compensation to set reimbursement rates for air ambulance services. The 3rd DCA is the latest of several courts to declare that the federal Airline Deregulation Act pre-empts state regulation on air ambulance companies' rates. Federal trial judges in Florida, North Dakota and Wyoming, and state appellate judges in California, have already reached that conclusion. So has a federal judge in West ...