Every other page in our Canadian series has the same shape: no insured benefit, no broker, and a fragmented set of payers you have to chase individually. This one is different.
Veterans Affairs Canada, the RCMP and the Canadian Armed Forces all fund medical transportation, all three are administered by the same company, and there is a single registration form. If you are looking for the closest thing in Canada to the US experience of credentialing with a payer and then billing them, this is it.
How it works
Medavie Blue Cross administers all three programmes under the Federal Health Claims Processing Service. Medavie is responsible for registering new service providers and processing claims for payment to them. Medavie was re-awarded the FHCPS contract in June 2025, with the new term going live August 1, 2027.
Medical transportation sits under Program of Choice 2, Ambulance and Medical Travel Services. On Medavie's live new-provider registration form, the provider type dropdown contains "Ambulance/Health Travel Services" as option 2. You do not have to argue your way into a category. The category is already there.
The POC 2 provider agreement states that participating providers submit claims directly to Medavie Blue Cross for payment, covering VAC, CAF and RCMP clients. One agreement, three payers, electronic payment.
What is actually billable
The live VAC benefit grid includes these line items, among others:
- 700210 Non-Emergency Ambulance Services
- 700400 Health Related Travel, Taxi or Ride Share
- 700408 Health Related Travel, Transportation for the Disabled
- 700409 Health Related Travel, Patient Transfer, Non-Emergency
- 700557 Patient Transport Flat Fees
- Mileage at $0.67 per kilometre
The statutory basis is the Veterans Health Care Regulations, which fund "the most convenient and economical means of transportation appropriate to the condition of the client."
There is a second, separate pot most operators do not know about. The Veterans Independence Programme, Program of Choice 15, provides transportation funding at $1,652.41 per client per year, and critically it covers social trips, not just medical ones. For an operator, a client with a VIP transportation allowance is a recurring non-medical customer with a funded budget, which is a genuinely different proposition from trip-by-trip medical authorisation.
Why this is the easiest door in Canada
Compare it honestly against the alternatives in our other guides.
- NIHB is larger at $789.6M, but has no portal, no self-serve enrolment and requires region-by-region relationship building.
- Ontario auto requires an FSRA service provider licence, a $337 application, a Principal Representative and annual regulatory fees, and then pays only distance beyond the first 50 kilometres.
- Institutional procurement means winning tenders, which is slow and lumpy.
- Provincial health plans do not pay at all.
- This programme is a registration form with your provider type already in the dropdown.
That does not make it big. VAC's client base is finite and shrinking, and it will not be the foundation of a large operation. But it is a real, federally funded, direct-billed revenue line that you can set up while you are waiting on slower channels, and the VIP social-trip allowance is unusually sticky.
What we could not verify
We will be straight about the gaps rather than paper over them.
- Whether codes 700408, 700409 and 700557 settle to the provider or to the veteran. VAC also runs a veteran-reimbursement rail, and we could not confirm which codes flow which way. Ask Medavie before you assume you are being paid directly on a given code.
- The current per-kilometre and flat-fee schedules beyond the figures above, which change over time.
How to start
Go to Medavie Blue Cross's provider registration, select Ambulance/Health Travel Services as your provider type, and complete the registration. You will receive a provider number and access to electronic payment. Then ask specifically about POC 2 and POC 15, and get written confirmation of which billing codes settle to you rather than to the client.
One practical note: because the same registration covers VAC, CAF and RCMP, it is worth understanding the client mix in your service area. Communities near military bases, RCMP detachments or with large veteran populations will produce meaningfully more volume than the national average would suggest.
Get started with Bambi
Our aiNEMT software handles scheduling, dispatching, care coordination and real-time tracking. In a market with no broker feeding you trips, the admin all lands on you, which is exactly where software earns its keep. Get in touch for a demo.
