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| SkyMed takes you home |
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by Brian Welch
askMANDO.com
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“SkyMed Takes You Home” is more than a slogan for SkyMed International. Simply put, if a SkyMed member or their loved ones are ever hurt while traveling, the company will provide emergency transportation to their local hospital and medical care providers.
Will Klein is president of this Scottsdale, Arizona-based company. We recently interviewed Will, and he told us more about SkyMed.
M&O: How did your company get started?
Will: The idea of SkyMed was developed in 1989 by a fellow in Brentwood, Tennessee but wasn’t taken much beyond the concept stage. On September 1, 1993, I led a small group of investors and we acquired more than anything else the name “SkyMed” and a fledgling concept.
M&O: What have been some of SkyMed’s biggest challenges, and how were they overcome?
Will: Developing a game plan which would separate SkyMed from the plethora of travel services which seemed to mirror on one another. We settled on providing a guarantee that in the event one of our members suffered a critical illness or injury, SkyMed would get them to their health care providers and hospitals.
This is particularly important for travelers in HMOs, PPOs or retirees traveling out of country with Medicare as their only health care insurance option. It was most important for those stricken travelers to get ‘home’ once they were stabilized for travel to avoid financially crippling medical bills.
Once an insured was stable for travel the HMO is not required to provide care beyond the emergent aspect of the case. This was subject to challenge by a New Jersey insured, and on July 1, 1993, a Federal District Court ruled in favor of the HMO that was sued by its member to pay for all related medical and hospital bills while in a Colorado hospital which could more than adequately provide the necessary care.
The HMO wanted their contracted medical experts to provide the care. It would have been the insured’s cost to travel back to New Jersey by whatever means was medically appropriate.
SkyMed Takes You Home was not borne of that incident but it reflects the importance of The SkyMed Difference.
M&O: What about some of the company’s greatest successes?
Will: Without question the hundreds and hundreds of services we have provided to our membership through the years. The numerous testimonials on our website, www.skymed.com, attest to that and those testimonials are but a sampling of our work through the years.
One quote that will stay with me forever came from Maralyne Hoenes, Kalamazoo, Michigan, who suffered a life threatening blood disorder while holidaying in Cancun, Mexico. Following her complete recovery after repatriation home by medically equipped jet, she wrote, “If it weren’t for SkyMed I wouldn’t be here today.”
M&O: How is the current economic situation affecting your company?
Will: Our core business has always been the RV traveler. In February 1994, the Winnebago Itasca Traveler’s club chose SkyMed as the service it wanted their membership to consider when it came to emergency air evacuation/repatriation and our related services which include RV/vehicle return, physical remains return, pet return, etc. WIT has remained an endorser of SkyMed to this day as have numerous other RV brands including Holiday Rambler, Newmar, Airstream and others. For these travelers SkyMed Takes You Home is the gold standard.
Increasing fuel prices have not dimmed the RV travel market as much as financing of new and pre-owned RV purchases as banks hoard their capital. The good news is there are approximately 10 million RVs on the road today throughout North America where SkyMed’s base product serves 32 countries. There is plenty of market opportunity.
Having said that, in recent years we have expanded our product reach through short term as well as annual travel to new dimensions such as timeshares, vacation clubs, travel agencies and other affinity groups. Neither SkyMed nor Global ETS must be purchased on a trip by trip basis which is what the typical traveler must do. Our annual plans eliminate the need for multiple purchasing. And Global ETS gives us the additional capability to be a worldwide service.
M&O: Can you tell us about your new worldwide product?
Will: For some time we have given consideration to introducing a world wide emergency travel program. The uniqueness of our original service “SkyMed Takes You Home” is that at a time of critical illness or injury the member has the choice of deciding whether they travel home or have a medical procedure done where they are hospitalized.
The matter of choice is a member benefit that can include repatriation home by a medically flight crew on a fully outfitted air ambulance. This choice is not offered by typical travel benefit programs and for good reason when the traveler is outside of the North American hemisphere. We tell every traveler ALWAYS READ THE FINE PRINT.
We still wanted a service that would have a SkyMed edge so to speak and it took some time to get to that point. We acquired a company with a service that we felt was compatible to what we were doing for the past 20 years throughout North America.
Our new program so as not to confuse travelers is offered by a division of SkyMed called Global Emergency Travel Services. The G-ETS program has as its core an evacuation and repatriation service for medically necessary services.
The role of G-ETS is to take the stricken traveler to a medical facility as quickly as possible to that the traveler’s health needs can be looked after. This could involve any means of transport, ground or air. Once the traveler is in a facility that can perform the required world class medical services and those services are completed, if medically necessary G-ETS will repatriate the traveler home. Again by whatever means is necessary.
This is as opposed to leaving the stranded traveler to fend for themselves in a foreign local, find a way to return home and more likely than not pay thousands of dollars, cash in advance for that return.
M&O: What do you hope your customers say to each other about your company?
Will: That with whomever they speak, they will always be satisfied with their SkyMed or Global ETS membership and encourage their friends to make the same decision they did when it comes to one of the most little known yet financially valuable medical services – emergency repatriation when they or a loved one faces a medical crisis away from home.
For less than a dollar a day a family can enjoy SkyMed peace of mind when traveling. Why doesn’t everyone become a SkyMed member especially when air ambulance flights cost between $10,000 and $100,000?
M&O: What do you see for the future of SkyMed?
Will: That SkyMed continues to be recognized as the company which competitors envy when it comes to the transportation services we provide our membership. Travel will not diminish, it will grow. And we want SkyMed, the company with a great name, to be at the forefront of that growth.
SkyMed can be an important revenue source for those in the travel industry who are searching new income streams.
The crying wolf by regulatory health officials at all levels when the H1N1 virus was first diagnosed has probably done more damage in the short term to travel than any other single factor including the tightness of credit markets and current economic uncertainty. The Mexican travel market was unnecessarily devastated by this unconscionable blunder.
We are extremely proud of the fact that SkyMed have never been cited for regulatory discipline in any jurisdiction.
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