Medicaid/Medicare Funded Transportation
Non-emergency and emergency transportation services are paid benefits in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. However, Medicare only pays for emergency ambulance type services; whereas Medicaid funds both emergency and non-emergency transportation services to approved destinations for health care. The general rule of thumb is that transportation will be provided if the service provider rendering the medical care is also a Medicaid approved service and is reimbursed by Medicaid. This excludes non-medical community services such as nutrition centers, support groups, grocery shopping, and prescription pick-up.
FLPPS has focused intently on this particular work stream to identify new and existing transportation gaps related to the DSRIP program initiatives. This work stream is guided by an advisory committee and works directly with other FLPPS committees (i.e. Workforce, Finance, IT and Clinical) to ensure proposed initiatives align with the selected DSRIP Projects and the specific recommendations made by each Committee.
To date, there is not a lot of quantitative data available to illustrate the current barriers to transportation. One of FLPPS’ goals is to evaluate the capacity and funding of each type of regional transportation service (ie, bus, taxi, private, ambulatory, etc.) and create alternative solutions to increase transportation access for non-clinical support services such as the grocery, pharmacy, and shopping centers.
If transportation barriers can be incorporated into the electronic patient record, we can begin to quantitatively track the impact of this limitation on individual health outcomes. Throughout all of this, FLPPS is not working to increase capacity by adding capital resources but evaluating current state and create more efficient integrated systems using mobility management.