About this episode
Joe Hiltz, operations manager at Gold Star Transportation in Knoxville, Tennessee, runs a seven-van fleet where about 90% of the volume is private pay and only a select few brokers are in the mix. After the company replaced an app called Workforce with Bambi, daily dispatch phone calls fell from 20 to 40 down to roughly five, and the dispatcher now books three to six days out in minutes. Hiltz starts at 3 a.m. reviewing the prior day's revenue and on-time performance, assigns vans by Knoxville sector, and wants unloaded miles at 10 to 15% instead of 20 to 30%.
Key takeaways
- Gold Star started in 2017 when Scott and Sharon bought one van, hit five vans by 2021, and now runs seven: one wheelchair-only, six wheelchair and stretcher capable.
- Trip volume splits roughly 25% individuals paying out of pocket and 75% facility private pay, the side Hiltz calls the company's meat and potatoes.
- Private-pay facilities enter their own trips in the Bambi ordering portal, so mistakes surface at the facility before dispatch; brokers stay off the portal and confirm by phone and email.
- Facilities owe a fee for cancelling inside four hours of the appointment, and when a no-show frees a van, crews near overtime go home so trips get reassigned toward 40 hours.
- Growth came by word of mouth, from one facility in Blount County to more than 50, with three quarters of the large facilities using Gold Star exclusively.
Chapters
- 0:00 Intro: The shift to private-pay facility contracts
- 0:37 How Joe Hilts entered the NEMT industry
- 1:21 Gold Star Transportation’s history & controlled 7-van fleet growth
- 2:40 Eliminating downtime and paper tracking with Bambi
- 5:14 Private-Pay vs. Broker Trips: The ultimate ROI breakdown
- 7:27 A day in the life of an NEMT Operations Manager
- 11:13 Strategies for reducing empty miles & sector-based routing
- 14:47 Managing driver overtime and facility no-shows
- 16:45 NEMT Marketing: How word-of-mouth drives massive growth
- 19:40 Securing and retaining 50+ healthcare facility partnerships
- 22:38 Using "Run Bambi Run" to automate scheduling and dispatch
