Health plans invest heavily in member outreach, yet welcome packets go unopened and calls reach disconnected numbers. One benefit reaches members repeatedly, at the moment they seek care: nonemergency medical transportation.
Most NEMT programs I work with are measured on operational performance: trip fulfillment, no-show rates, complaint volume, service-level agreement compliance and cost containment. Far fewer are measured on whether the members who need the benefit most, those with no other way to get to their appointments, know it exists and trust it enough to use it.
Data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality show that 1 in 5 adults with Medicaid lacked reliable transportation in 2021, keeping them from medical appointments, work or daily needs. Among those in fair or poor health, it was 1 in 3.
Closing the awareness and trust gap
The first challenge is awareness. A national survey cited in a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report to Congress found only 29% of eligible Medicaid beneficiaries knew about the benefit. In my experience, it appears in the member handbook and rarely elsewhere.
The second is trust. CMS acknowledged in its 2023 Medicaid Transportation Coverage Guide that members who have a negative transportation experience may come to see it as a barrier to care. In the programs I support, those members rarely file a complaint. They stop booking rides, and over time, they stop showing up for care.
Trust can be rebuilt. At a large health plan in California, our closed-loop program reduced the complaint-to-trip ratio by 61% while benefit utilization increased. Fewer complaints on their own can mean members have given up. Fewer complaints alongside more rides means members trust the benefit.
Reaching members when it matters most
Benefit education works best at the moment of need. That means introducing transportation in a member’s first months and adding one line to preventive care outreach: “Your screening is due, and your ride is covered.” It also means prenatal and postpartum ride support, booking rides before hospital discharge and asking after a missed appointment whether transportation played a role.
The new member satisfaction survey
Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) results arrive months after the fact. Alternatively, app store ratings tell the story in real time and in members’ own words, and members read them before booking.
That makes an app’s quality as important as its existence. It’s easy to treat an app as a procurement checkbox, but a glitchy one can do more harm than no app at all. When it crashes during booking, shows the wrong pickup time or never confirms the ride, members are left wondering whether anyone is coming. After a few such moments, they stop trying, and the benefit loses them.
A well-designed app is the front door to the benefit. It guides members through booking, makes changes easy, and shows where their transportation provider is in real time. Caregivers can use the app on a member’s behalf, which matters because not every member can manage a booking on their own. Member feedback has been positive: members value managing rides on their own schedule, and many say they feel more ownership over their benefit.
Plans evaluating partners should read app reviews, test the booking flow and weigh ratings as seriously as on-time performance, because their members already do.
An early warning system for care management
Claims arrive weeks or months after a visit, and a missed appointment generates no claim at all. A closed-loop program that connects members, drivers, providers and the plan shows every trip as it happens.
Every ride request, cancellation and no-show tells a story. A member who cancels several dialysis rides or whose behavioral health rides suddenly stop may be facing a health change, housing instability or disengagement. Without that visibility, the first warning may be an emergency room visit. With it, care managers can act first.
Reduce friction. Restore trust.
Health plans own the member relationship, and the right partner should strengthen it. The question is no longer “Did the ride happen?” but “Is the benefit activated, and what is it teaching us about our members?” Plans can start by tracking benefit activation alongside ride completion and routing trip pattern changes into care management. The result is more members getting to care, confident their ride will show up.
About the author
Jill Hericks is head of strategic accounts at Kinetik, a tech-enabled services company that orchestrates the movement of people, data and care across the healthcare ecosystem. Kinetik partners with health plans to modernize nonemergency medical transportation programs.
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