NEMT brokers act as the liaison between patients and NEMT providers. While the part they play in the NEMT cycle might seem little or irrelevant, note that brokers tend to have so much to deal with daily; from handling schedules and understanding the healthcare system to ensuring that patients are eligible for transportation services.
Brokers can easily carry out these responsibilities through non-emergency medical transportation brokerage software. Have it in mind that with the right software, brokers can easily note each patient’s needs and fit them with the right vehicle.
Note that this feature is very necessary especially to guarantee patients have the right incentives for their ride, like wheelchairs, walkers, or even gurneys. Adequately understanding the exact equipment needed ahead of time will surely save time and money and prevent last-minute changes.
In busy areas like cities, you’ll find a vast range of Medicaid transportation brokers. Most often, brokers split the city into sections and take on specific areas so they can carry out more trips per day without having to move a long distance.
It’s also common for clients to be moved to another broker if the requested trip doesn’t fall within that broker’s area of service. Additionally, the broker is also tasked with following up on trips and making sure that the patient was picked up and dropped off at the right place, at the right time.
Have it in mind that brokers can easily keep up with patients’ locations and drivers’ schedules through NEMT software. They can also calculate costs and timing ahead of the trip to ensure that both the patient and provider are well prepared and in the know.
How to Become a NEMT Broker
Truth be told, NEMT brokers are the head and heart of the entire healthcare continuum. They function as the central hub that controls all NEMT trips, gives jobs to NEMT providers, and ensures that patients get to their medical appointments, urgent care, and pharmacy drug pick-ups or directly to the hospital. If you are looking to become a NEMT broker in the United States, here are steps to take.
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Establish Industry Relationships
Note that aside from a NEMT broker, there are other vital components in the NEMT brokerage scheme; health plan agencies, NEMT providers, and patients. Therefore, when looking to become a NEMT broker, you have to first establish relationships with all these components.
You can start by contacting local, state, and federal agencies and note the possibility of obtaining requests for NEMT orders directly from them.
Also, note that you can contact local hospitals and private practice doctors to begin small. By reaching out to these agencies and doctors, you can arrange the primary route for obtaining patients and therefore start your NEMT brokerage business.
You should also consider discussing with local NEMT experts (providers) to ensure you have a channel or means to transport your patients. It is imperative you discuss not only how to transfer a patient to them but also find out the NEMT cloud dispatching software they are using to guarantee cooperation and management of orders.
You can also consider knocking on the doors of potential clients to directly offer your services. However, it is much more ideal, especially in terms of connection and budget savings, to publicize your service in the community via printed ads, leaflets, and social media pages.
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Build a Database and Choose your NEMT Dispatch Software
After you must have set up initial relationships, it is now time to invest resources into building a database of all those contacts. You should also make sure you gather all contact information, terms of cooperation, any papers that need to be signed, etc.
For the individual patients, you will need the time and date of their appointments, housing information, healthcare plans, and destinations. You will also need to choose the perfect NEMT dispatch and billing software for your business.
This is where you have to put into consideration all the software used by the drivers and NEMT providers and try to choose the most common or open solution (in terms of integration with other platforms). Have it in mind that NEMT management software lets you keep track of all requests, routes, and statuses of both; more modern ones even display all possible information about every patient, driver, payment history, etc.
It simply entails that the management of the whole brokerage business becomes more convenient and stress-free for you since the software handles all the dispatching, tracking, and calculations within seconds.
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Keep Track of Credentialing
It is important to ensure that any driver offered by NEMT providers has the right papers, such as a driver’s license and license to offer NEMT services. You should also ensure that you infuse all this data into your NEMT dispatch software to enable the solution note when any license expires or if a driver has any negative client-relation history.
Have it in mind that this same process is very necessary for patients. A good number of them will come from the state and federal insurance programs and will be expected to prove their eligibility for NEMT services. You should also let the software notify you once the patient’s plan has expired and they have to renew for the service privately. In this simple way, you can easily avoid a lot of uncomfortable disputes.
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Carry out Regular Analyses and Reviews
You should carry out an overview and analysis of your brokerage business at least once every quarter. Note that this will help you identify the most common issues your business is dealing with (some drivers are frequently late, some patients cancel rides, there are late insurance payments, customers are not entirely happy with the comfort of the vehicles, your fleet is not enough, etc.).
Have it in that such well-detailed and quality monitoring will help in growing your business regularly. A good number of modern transportation dispatch software today make available detailed business reports and basic analytics of the business performance so you are only expected to monitor that data.
Don’t forget that the success of a NEMT brokerage company most often depends on the management and analytical skills of its leader.
You should ensure you monitor all the processes going on inside of the business to assess them every once in a while and improve on the company’s underperformance as soon as possible. Also, remember to infuse NEMT software into your day-to-day operations since this helps to smoothen business management and can grow your turnover of new orders.
List of the Biggest NEMT Broker Companies in the Industry
- Access2Care
- National MedTrans
- Alivi
- Circulation
- Logisticare
- SecuTrans
- MTM
- LogistiCare
Conclusion
NEMT brokers are without doubt the most vital piece of the transportation chain. These experts are the people who schedule trips, arrange with providers, and guarantee rides for men and women who require transportation to a healthcare visit.
Note that there are both big and small, local, regional, and national brokers, but they all carry out the same function: find and schedule trips. Ideally, becoming a NEMT broker is a very profitable career choice. If you are eager to help in planning, arranging, and making available transportation for those who need it, then you should consider becoming a NEMT broker.