Did you know ambulances are also used for non-emergency situations? Whether you’re a child or an adult, Heather Segovia and her husband, Moises Segovia, have you covered. Owners of two ambulance businesses, St. Michael’s and Life Star, their beginnings are both humble and inspiring.
Moises Segovia started out as a medic and has over 16 years of experience under his belt. In fact, his decision to start his own business came from an incident with a previous employer. His boss would not allow him to take an elderly woman to her husband’s funeral, who had been a patient of Segovia’s for years. He was told that if he took this woman to her husband’s funeral, he would be fired. Moises Segovia chose to put his values over his employment and was terminated shortly after, allowing his patient to say her final goodbyes to her husband.
“We believe in treating every patient like they’re your own mother,” Heather Segovia said. “Our patients deal with a lot with family and their diagnoses. The last thing they need to be worried about is how they’re going to get from here to there.”
With newfound unemployment, Moises Segovia had to make a decision: continue his life’s passion of helping others or move on. For $30,000, Segovia pieced together the couple’s first ambulance using an older back box paired with a new front chassis. Since then, they have grown their fleet to 14 ambulances.
The majority of patients whom Life Star assists are bed-bound, obese, need oxygen, or need restraint. Many elderly patients need transport from their nursing homes to the hospital. The non-emergency transportation service Life Star provides is critical in the health management of patients who need more than a taxi service for their commute to their medical appointments.
Whether you need safe and reliable medical transportation across town or across the country, Life Star can help you. Specializing in long-distance transfer, also known as LDT, Life Star is the go-to ambulatory transport business in South Texas. 
In a recent case, the company transported an elderly man across the country so he could spend his final days with his family. Life Star accepts all insurance as well as private pay. In this situation, the family was able to utilize the private pay option.
While Life Star has proven to be an exceptional aid to the Rio Grande Valley area over the years, the truly life-saving moments occurred during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When the ambulance system for the City of Brownsville hit capacity, many institutions, such as The Center for Dialysis, had nobody to turn to.
“By law, all transports are covered by insurance if the patient has been diagnosed with COVID,” Heather Segovia said. “Therefore, the city hit capacity fairly quickly.”
Life Star made the easy choice to transport patients from their nursing homes to their dialysis appointments on a daily basis. Unfortunately, their assistance did not come without pushback. Even though the city only had eight trucks to cover the entire city of Brownsville, the city’s EMS service was the only service allowed to work there.
The Segovias received eight citations simply for trying to help during a city-wide catastrophe.
“COVID has opened the eyes to the city’s ambulance system, which is operating as a monopoly,” Heather Segovia said. “We’re only allowed to transport patients into or out of the city, but not within the city. It’s the same with Harlingen, but they are closer to changing their policy.
“People are waiting up to four hours for an ambulance because the city only has eight to 10 trucks for the whole City of Brownsville, yet we have 14.”
The staff at Life Star are experts at making a very difficult situation a little easier through caring for their patients the way they would their own family. Every truck is fully equipped with the latest state-of-the-art medical equipment to ensure all proper measures are taken for a safe and comfortable patient experience.
Those interested in non-emergency ambulance service may call (956) 660-6543 or visit https://lifestarems-rgv.business.site/ to get an online quote today.
