From Access to Adherence: Modernizing NEMT to Improve the Member Experience
Reliable mobility is healthcare’s first mile. When non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) is treated as a core benefit and integrated into the benefits and payments experience, health plan members reach preventive visits, manage chronic conditions, and pick up medications with less friction. Connecting ride eligibility, scheduling, and status to rewards and reporting turns mobility into measurable outcomes, higher satisfaction, more verified completions, and steady improvement in quality measures.
Recent national data quantifies the opportunity: in 2022, 5.7% of U.S. adults reported lacking reliable transportation for daily living, a signal that access barriers remain material for many members. At the plan level, transportation availability is uneven, with 80% of Special Needs Plan (SNP) enrollees having a ride benefit, compared to 28% in the individual MA market. Given this, it’s clear that the member experience depends heavily on plan design.
Leading health plans that are continuing to focus on a member-centered approach are designing plan benefits to integrate non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) into the same plans that power benefits, payments, and communications. When ride eligibility, scheduling, reminders, and status updates align with the member’s other benefits, the experience is clear, the operational workflow is predictable, and the data can attribute which trips enabled which actions (screenings, dialysis, imaging, A1C testing, vaccinations, prescription pick-ups). Linking transportation to the rewards layer strengthens behavior change, while connecting specific trips to retail verification (e.g., food/OTC/Prescriptions when appropriate) turns one journey into multiple, documented completions all within a single, auditable data model.
NationsTransport™ is built for this integrated, member-first model. Members schedule through the app, IVR, or live agent on the same platform they use for other benefits, with GPS visibility, live ETAs, and proactive notifications that keep them aligned. We orchestrate credentialed local fleets, trusted TNCs, and a growing Care Partner–Driver workforce, comprising medical assistants, CNAs, and LNAs, to deliver reliable transportation across urban, suburban, and rural markets. Our network supports curb-to-curb, door-to-door, wheelchair, and other accessibility needs, ensuring every member can get where they need to go. Powered by an intelligent logistics engine, this hybrid network has delivered a 98.9% trip success and 99.6% on-time performance while serving nearly one million members nationwide, giving plans the reliability and scale required for measurable impact.
Because transportation runs on the same fintech platform as our benefits stack, plans can fund rides through a unified wallet and trigger instant, verified rewards on completion. And when a ride coincides with pharmacy or nutrition needs, item-level adjudication (BAS/Benefits POS) can verify eligible purchases in the same trip, increasing convenience for members and clarity for plans.
The upside is practical and measurable: fewer missed appointments, more preventative care, and chronic disease management, smoother follow-through on labs and vaccinations, higher member satisfaction, and refined attribution for Stars/HEDIS supported by audit-ready logs and cohort analytics that show which outreach and incentive combinations work best for each population. With medical transportation positioned as an integrated capability, health plans convert access into adherence in a way that is member-centric, operationally disciplined, and measurable.