How He’s Winning Private Pay NEMT Work in California, Part 2/2 | NEMT Experts Podcast Episode 83
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Dr Dee Jones explains how she humbly started and ran her NEMT business for years, and recently having her fleet grow from 4 to 25 vans!
Top 3 Takeaways:
- Trust and Community = the Foundation
- Matt built his NEMT business by becoming deeply embedded in his local ecosystem — showing up to senior roundtables, personally driving clients, and establishing face-to-face relationships with facilities. Over 50% of his rides now come from those connections.
- Private Pay First, Strategic Scale Later
- From the beginning, Matt focused on private pay rides for flexibility, control, and better margins. He’s now carefully expanding into broker and insurance work — but only when it complements his schedule and profitability goals.
- Amazon Logistics Experience as His “Secret Sauce”
- Matt’s background running Amazon DSP and FedEx line-haul operations gave him an edge. He adapted their systems (from cameras to hiring processes) to streamline his NEMT startup and manage his operations like a pro from day one.
Top 3 Quotes:
“I set out from the get-go to say, I am going private pay. That is what I’m doing. That’s how I’m starting.”
— Matt Saltzman
“I’ve just stolen the Amazon playbook and applied it to NEMT.”
— Matt Saltzman
“You could fail at the stuff you don’t want to do, so you might as well try the stuff you do want to do.”
— Nirav Chheda, quoting Jim Carrey
