BLOG

America's obesity rate stopped climbing a decade ago, but that average is misleading. Age-adjusted severe obesity rose from 7.7% to 9.7% of adults over the same period, and that's the group bariatric transportation exists for.

MediDrive is the statewide NEMT broker for Health First Colorado, the state's Medicaid program. This guide covers how to become a MediDrive transportation provider, what credentialing requires, and the dates Colorado providers need to plan around.

Colorado spent the summer cutting what it pays for non-emergency medical transportation, and in September the results showed up in service. Two providers reduced or ended operations in a single county, a state committee voted unanimously to raise the lowest-paying codes, and the same month brought federal rural health dollars into NEMT fleets in two other states.

Gasoline went up, came back down, and went up again in 2026, from $2.78 to $4.50 a gallon. A budget can absorb a high price it planned for, not a moving one. Here's what the swings cost per trip and the three levers you still control.

August came down to one question: access, and who is actually positioned to deliver it. Maine's Supreme Judicial Court settled a decade-long, roughly $750 million statewide broker fight, North Dakota opened federal dollars for wheelchair-equipped vans, and the first purpose-built robotaxi cleared federal review without any way to carry a passenger who stays in their wheelchair. Here is what happened in August and what it means for transportation providers.

Ohio wrote GPS trip verification into Medicaid law, California's $2 billion Medi-Cal fix landed with CMS for a decision, and a new study put hard numbers on the transportation access gap. Here is what moved in July 2026 and what it means for transportation providers.

Broker contracts changed hands in at least four states, Medicaid fraud enforcement went from a Minnesota problem to a 50-state mandate in under 90 days, and two states wrote electronic trip verification into law. Here is what actually happened in medical transportation between January and June 2026, organized by theme, with our own 2026 predictions scored honestly.

Your broker is already scoring you on numbers you might not be tracking. Miss the wrong one and you lose trips, or the whole contract. There's no national standard for NEMT metrics yet, but that hasn't stopped brokers and facilities from writing hard thresholds into every deal.

RouteGenie has partnered with Uber Health to bring Uber's rideshare network into its medical transportation platform across the US and Canada, giving 600+ fleets, health systems, and health plans on-demand rides alongside their own vehicles and contracted providers.

An ambulance call is urgent because a patient is getting worse. A discharge call is urgent because a patient got better, and the bed now belongs to someone else. Same clock, opposite cause. That inversion makes discharge transportation its own category of NEMT.

NEMT broker relationships are shifting across several states in 2026, bringing new credentialing, billing, technology, and trip-documentation requirements for providers. This article breaks down the major broker changes and explains how to build a compliance operation that can adapt without disrupting service or revenue.

Owned shuttles in one system. NEMT vendors in another. Rideshare in a third. Ambulances as the fallback. Most health systems move patients across four disconnected tools, and no one can see the whole picture. Patient transportation software pulls it into one.