Answering Typical Questions About NEMT Services

There are about 3.6 million Americans who miss or postpone medical care due to a lack of the right transportation to their respective appointments. Several low-income Americans may lack the necessary disposable income to work in automobiles and may also lack access to public transportation to and from medical appointments. Fortunately, Medicaid offers a non-emergency medical transportation benefit that provides the least expensive and right way of getting individuals to their respective appointments via various means, such as van, taxi, public transit, or mileage reimbursement. Read on to know some of the answers to the typical questions about NEMT.

• Why is there a need for medical transportation?
  If beneficiaries are not able to travel reliably to and from their respective medical appointments due to the lack of medical transportation, there’s a chance that their overall care may suffer, reuslting in incurring higher healthcare expenses in the form of hospitalizations as well as other kinds of intensive services. This would mean a disservice to the beneficiary as well as to the federal and state taxpayers, who are the source of funds for the Medicaid program.
• What are the kinds of appointments that patients need to travel to and from?
  There’s a broad range of medical visit kinds covered by NEMT like those offered by transportation services in Arizona provided that the services offered are compensable by Medicaid. What follows are some of the most typical medical requirements of the Medicaid beneficiaries that need NEMT:
  • counseling sessions for substance abuse
  • behavioral and mental health appointments
  • primary care doctors or specialists visits
  • chemotherapy and other types of recurring infusion therapies
  • dialysis services for those patients who have End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD)
• How much is paid for a single trip?
  Several factors will determine the cost per trip, including the time and distance from the patient’s home to the location of the appointment and back, the type of transportation needed, and the availability of transportation choices in a particular area. For instance, a long trip to a dialysis center intended for a non-ambulatory or wheelchair-bound patient from a rural area will cost more compared to a short trip to a particular primary care provider intended for an ambulatory patient situated in a suburban community.
• Do more hospitals and providers offer NEMT as an integral part of the transition to value-based care?
  The answer is yes. More hospitals and providers have adapted to value-based reimbursement models which are based on a lump sum payment for each episode of care provided resulting in free efficient transportation services for follow-up appointments becoming more common. However, regulatory barriers exist to regulate how and when providers can provide transportation.

At White Horse Medical Transportation, you can avail yourself of excellent NEMT services to take you or your loved ones to your medical appointments comfortably and safely. Feel free to contact us and know about our NEMT services in Phoenix, Arizona.