Archives for NEMT

Crime Does Not Always Pay

This is even true in public transportation, where it usually does. Just look at the non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) sector (see https://transalt.com/article/nemt-brokers-motivecare-and-mtm-stealing-hundred-of-billions-from-our-healthcare-system/ and https://transalt.com/article/responses-to-declining-ridership-part-1-contracting-independent-contractors-and-brokers/), where two mega-brokers – Motivcare (formerly LogistiCare) and Veyo (formally MTM) — steal between $200B and $300B a year (my conservative estimate) from our healthcare system. The corruption of Uber and Lyft is comparable but not as nuanced. And because Uber and Lyft are not “middlemen,” like brokers, the complexity of filing against them does not frighten away so many attorneys. Plus, the typical lazy lawyer too cheap and lazy to find and converse with an

NEMT Brokers – Motivecare and MTM: Stealing Hundred of Billions from our Healthcare System

Two defendants are constantly sued, mostly for wheelchair tipovers. But most plaintiffs’ attorneys leave vast sums of money on the table: Motivcare (formerly LogistiCare) and MTM – two non-emergency medical brokers operate in all or part of 45 states and the District of Columbia. These companies make most of their money simply by stealing what they don’t waste (through incompetence and reckless disregard). I estimate that these two defendants, together, are stealing between $300B and half a trilliion dollars a year from our healthcare system. Before regulations (more than 20 years ago) legitimized the hiring of brokers, most transportation companies

Defending Contractors, Part 3: The Whistleblower’s Song

A few months ago, 85% of the nation’s motorcoach fleet lay around collecting dust. As noted in a former installment of National Bus Trader (see Motorcoach survival in the age of covid: the end of charter and tour service for now), the fat charter and tour sectors of yesteryear are gone – at least for some time. If ridership on the mode (transit) transporting our tired, poor and huddled masses has shrunk by 10 percent in each of the two years preceding COVID-19, one can expect far fewer motorcoach joyrides. As we struggle to bounce back, limited stimulus funds notwithstanding,

Defending Contractors, Part 1: Lead Agencies and Brokers

For decades, motorcoach providers have provided commuter-express service, under contract, to transit agencies (and, occasionally, to municipalities which do not even have formal transit agencies). Particularly in the past 20 years, this role has expanded: Motorcoach providers are increasingly providing service on local and regional routes, often with regular buses – not even motorcoaches. Similarly, many motorcoach companies also own schoolbuses, and provide schoolbus service, under contract, to school districts. For decades, roughly a third of all schoolbus service has been contracted out, and this percentage had remained surprisingly consistent. For the same reasons that contracted transit service has been