LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The two air medical providers who serve Lake County announced Thursday that they are joining forces.
REACH Air Medical Services LLC and California Shock Trauma Air Rescue, known more commonly as CALSTAR – two of the preeminent air medical ambulance providers in Northern and Central California for three decades – are entering into an agreement that will place CALSTAR within the same corporate holding company as REACH, the REACH Medical Holdings LLC.
“This is an opportunity for both CALSTAR and REACH to not be working against each other in Northern California but combine forces to serve the communities,” Anna Blair, REACH vice president of Business Relations & Development, told Lake County News in a Thursday interview.
REACH and CALSTAR are frequently called upon to transport patients to out-of-county hospitals either directly from local hospitals or from the scenes of incidents such as vehicle crashes, and have even helped with searches for missing people.
As part of the terms of the agreement, the air medical operation of CALSTAR will become a limited liability company and will operate under the current CALSTAR brand as CALSTAR Air Medical Services LLC, according to a joint announcement from both providers.
The new company will be one of the three firms under REACH Medical Holdings LLC, a holding corporation which is part of Air Medical Group Holdings Inc., one of the largest air medical firms in the United States. Cal-Ore Life Flight, which merged with REACH in 2011, also is a part of the holding company, officials said.
Blair said both CALSTAR and REACH will continue to operate under their separate, well-known names.
In addition, she said CALSTAR will continue to operate with its own unique brand and flight nurse staffing model, which she called the “dual nurse” configuration. REACH also can offer the dual nurse configuration as well as using paramedic-nurse partners on flights.
REACH and CALSTAR officials foresee no base closures, with the goal being to focus on integration, support and maintaining the services that have made both organizations successful.
That means REACH's Lake County base, REACH 6 at Lampson Airport near Lakeport, will continue. Blair said the base has been in operation since 2004.
Initially, REACH served Lake County from its REACH 1 flagship base in Santa Rosa beginning in 1987, Blair said.
As for other impacts for Lake County, Blair said she anticipated an increase in the availability and efficiency of services because the two providers can now talk to each other.
There also is the matter of the change in coverage for people who hold memberships with the two providers.
“This is the best part,” said Blair, explaining that CALSTAR will now come under the AirMedCare Network structure, which means that the balance remaining after insurance pays for flights will be covered by CALSTAR just as it is by REACH.
“The goal is no out-of-pocket costs for the patient for the air transport portion,” Blair said.
Those benefits will apply across a network that covers 32 states and more than 251 aircraft locations that are part of AirMedCare Network, according to the Thursday announcement.
Blair said that it will take a few months before that update to the membership benefits is finalized. In the meantime, she encourages subscribers to keep their memberships with the providers current and, when the benefits are changed, subscribers will be notified.
“I'm so excited that we've finally been able to get here,” she said.
REACH – which includes Cal-Ore Life Flight – has more than 40 rotor and fixed-wing aircraft at more than 30 bases in California, Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana and Colorado; has bases affiliated with hospitals in Texas; and also assists customers in ground transport programs. Combined with Cal-Ore, the company has approximately 600 employees.
CALSTAR was founded in 1984 with headquarters in Hayward and today is based in McClellan. It has 225 employees, and 14 rotor and fixed-wing aircraft at nine bases of operation.
“At this time both entities are operating and functioning really well and our goal is to support that right now,” Blair said.
The providers said no other decisions have been made related to services.
While financial terms are not being disclosed at this time, REACH and CALSTAR did report that proceeds of the merger transaction will go to fund a new not-for-profit foundation to benefit the public.
The mission and activities of this new foundation are still to be determined and will be shared at a later date as they become available, officials said.
“Our companies have been competitors for 30 years, built upon similar foundations of high quality services, patient care and loyalty to our communities, to our patients and to our members who rely upon us for safe, reliable air medical transport,” said REACH President Sean Russell.
As part of Thursday's announcement, Lynn Malmstrom, CALSTAR's chief executive officer, said a team that includes staff from each company will be appointed to help guide the integration process.
“We want to ensure that the resources of both programs are reviewed and utilized in a manner that is reflective of the best practices from our 30-year commitments to community and patient care, to industry-leading employee training and to the safe operations of one of the most modern rotor and fixed-wing fleets in air medical care,” Malmstrom said.
Malmstrom and two others on his senior executive team – Tad Henderson, chief operating officer, and Mark Vincenzini, chief financial officer – will assist with the integration, but their respective roles will cease within the next 12 months as part of the agreement.
Both Russell and Malmstrom told employees Thursday that the goal is to maintain current operations and that no other decisions affecting base locations, staffing and fleet have been made.
For more information about REACH visit www.reachair.com ; visit CALSTAR online at www.calstar.org ; and follow the AirMedCare Network on Facebook.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.