[0:02] Nirav Chheda: Courtney Muchugu. She has been on a NEMTAC advisory board.
[0:07] Nirav Chheda: She has operated an NEMT company for 10 years and she currently consults for NEMT companies.
[0:28] Courtney Muchugu: or on break more than they are driving, you got to look at how you can kind of like fill in um fill in their time with more trips.
[0:35] Courtney Muchugu: Okay? So, that might that might mean if you're doing private pay, adding a broker.
[0:39] Courtney Muchugu: If you're just working with a broker, it might mean and you only want to work with brokers, it might mean adding additional contracts or doing a little bit of private pay.
[0:55] Nirav Chheda: that like working with brokers, you can get a high volume of trips, right?
[0:59] Nirav Chheda: Like you go to whatever local brokers are in your area.
[1:03] Nirav Chheda: Um, you know, you sign up with them, but I think winning private paywork is probably the more difficult thing to do, Um, can you give us some tips on like how you've done it?
[1:15] Nirav Chheda: like the NEMT companies that you consult for like how you advise them to do it.
[1:20] Courtney Muchugu: Sure. So, everyone's human, right? Um and most of the time transportation is a solution to a problem, right?
[1:28] Courtney Muchugu: Um so, I think if you're going into a facility that does their own transportation um or um is having an issue with transportation, the best way to go in there is just talk to them like a human.
[1:39] Courtney Muchugu: Figure out what their problems are.
[1:41] Courtney Muchugu: um if you can realistically do anything to solve them because um sometimes you can ruin your reputation as a company by overpromising services as well.
[1:52] Courtney Muchugu: So it's really important to have an understanding of what you're capable of providing.
[1:56] Courtney Muchugu: Um and that is one benefit of starting with a broker is that you get to build your reputation as a company.
[2:02] Courtney Muchugu: Um and you get to kind of establish a footprint before you maybe start going into private pay.
[2:09] Nirav Chheda: How do you have that conversation with facilities?
[2:13] Nirav Chheda: Um so that you're not actually overpromising.
[2:16] Courtney Muchugu: It depends on on the facility and who you're working with, right?
[2:19] Courtney Muchugu: You got to I would I would recommend to talk to them and let them know I'm really interested in doing business with you.
[2:24] Courtney Muchugu: Right now we're only able to do you know this amount.
[2:27] Courtney Muchugu: Um we can create a plan though or you know that plan might take one, two, three months, right?
[2:32] Courtney Muchugu: It might take a quarter. It might take a full year and uh we can take over you know your transportation needs fully.
[2:38] Courtney Muchugu: Um, uh, so you'd have to talk to that person and figure out what, you know, what they're willing to do.
[2:43] Courtney Muchugu: Um, what their comfort level is with it.
[2:45] Courtney Muchugu: But I think if there's, um, if they're, you know, if there's a will, there's a way.
[2:50] Courtney Muchugu: And again, talking to someone like they're human, um, and and just trying to work with someone, uh, people usually are willing to negotiate.
[2:59] Courtney Muchugu: Um, they might be actually hesitant to jump in fully with all their transportation needs.
[3:03] Courtney Muchugu: So going at a slower approach like that might be more appealing to them.
[3:07] Courtney Muchugu: But until you have that conversation, you won't know.
[3:09] Nirav Chheda: Okay. Um, I'm gonna ask you to tell stories if you can of how you actually win private pay work from facilities.
[3:18] Nirav Chheda: Like, you know, signing up with the broker is a relatively easy thing to do.
[3:23] Nirav Chheda: But if you want to go and get facility work, you have to actually probably walk physically into that facility, go find a human being who manages the transportation needs of the facility and have some sort of conversation with
[3:36] Nirav Chheda: them. That's a little harder than just signing up with a broker, right?
[3:41] Nirav Chheda: Um, how have you actually done it?
[3:44] Nirav Chheda: Like are there any stories you can share of like times that it's worked out for you, times that it hasn't worked out for you to try to win private pay work from facilities?
[3:52] Courtney Muchugu: So, you have to do your research first of all and see um how the how the health insurance payments goes in your state and in your market because um sometimes it might not make sense for a facility to
[4:04] Courtney Muchugu: do um to work with a transportation company.
[4:07] Courtney Muchugu: Um, I know for me one time, um, you know, I spent a lot of time like researching and looking up companies and trying to schedule meetings.
[4:16] Courtney Muchugu: Um, and I ended up just driving by a facility and I saw they had their own vans and with their own logos on it and I decided to just go in and ask the director um, you know, a
[4:27] Courtney Muchugu: little bit more. Um, I said, "So, are you guys doing your own transportation?" And he said, "Yes." Um and it just so happens they were trying to expand at the same time and they would have they were really
[4:38] Courtney Muchugu: looking um to reduce costs and for them eliminating transportation at that time you know was something that they needed to do.
[4:47] Courtney Muchugu: so they were So you just had the Yeah.
[4:49] Courtney Muchugu: It was just a random we just drove by and had a conversation.
[4:54] Courtney Muchugu: Um [laughter] and it just so happens it was he was looking you know to reduce costs and expand uh to a second location.
[5:01] Nirav Chheda: So, The timing was right. Wow.
[5:05] Courtney Muchugu: Um, I feel like it's a game of statistics, though.
[5:08] Courtney Muchugu: So, you have to call enough and walk into enough places before um you get a yes.
[5:13] Courtney Muchugu: You're get a you're going to get a lot of nos.
[5:15] Nirav Chheda: Okay. And then when you actually like Oh, so first you're like calling them on the phone before walking in and trying to have a meeting.
[5:25] Courtney Muchugu: You can do a mixture. Okay.
[5:27] Courtney Muchugu: Um some places uh you could walk into um and you're you'll find that the director or the manager is never available.
[5:33] Courtney Muchugu: You might have better luck Okay.
[5:36] Nirav Chheda: And like who do you think is usually the right person to actually talk to at a facility?
[5:41] Nirav Chheda: Like is it like some of the nursing staff sometimes or is it always like the manager or who actually do you try to get in touch Sure.
[5:50] Courtney Muchugu: So the titles I've noticed in a lot of the facilities will vary.
[5:54] Courtney Muchugu: Um, but I usually don't talk to the nurses.
[5:57] Courtney Muchugu: I'll usually ask to speak with the manager, the director or the um uh the manager, the director, the coordinator.
[6:05] Courtney Muchugu: Um, some sort of a title that shows that they have a general authority over the whole that have more features over time.
[6:22] Nirav Chheda: Um can we dig into that a bit more?
[6:24] Nirav Chheda: What do you what do you sort of mean by that?
[6:26] Courtney Muchugu: Can you give examples? Sure. So for us um uh it might have been fuel cards giving uh you know if you have fuel cards that you're giving your drivers you know what kind of system is behind that um
[6:37] Courtney Muchugu: you know what can you do on their platform um can it integrate with your tracking softwares and um even for your tracking softwares what features does the tracking software have um uh on there.
[6:48] Courtney Muchugu: So depending on what you need as a business, you can you can get into um you know, initially get into a tracking uh platform, right, in an agreement with a company who does tracking.
[7:00] Courtney Muchugu: Um and a couple years later another company comes out that's cheaper and offers twice the amount of features and would probably be an better option.
[7:09] Courtney Muchugu: But if you're not constantly like researching, um you know, you're not going to find that out.
[7:14] Courtney Muchugu: There's a reason why huge, you know, Fortune, you know, 500 companies invest so much money into research and development.
[7:19] Courtney Muchugu: It's because it's important. So, like this industry is no different.
[7:22] Courtney Muchugu: Like you constantly like as an owner have to put invest your time into researching and developing for the company.
[7:30] Nirav Chheda: Okay. So, let's say you're either a new NEMT company or an NEMT company that has been around for not very long and you realize that you need to do these things.
[7:42] Nirav Chheda: you need to find like new software systems that have the features that'll bring your business to the next level and whatnot, but maybe you're not the best at researching and going and finding out, right?
[7:53] Nirav Chheda: Like there are other NEMT companies out there who are doing these good practices, right?
[7:58] Nirav Chheda: Like if I'm an NEMT owner, how do I find who those companies are and what systems they're using if I want to do the same thing that they're doing, right?
[8:07] Nirav Chheda: And emulate their best practices, like how do I even find out about that stuff?
[8:11] Courtney Muchugu: Sure. So, um I think joining an organization like NEMTAC is really important.
[8:16] Courtney Muchugu: They're the only accrediting um company um you know in the United States for NEMT and they're a really valuable resource.
[8:26] Courtney Muchugu: They're invaluable. They're so valuable. Um so they have the yearly conference um where you're going to have owner operators from all throughout the country join together as well as um brokers and people from health plans.
[8:39] Courtney Muchugu: Um if you're in a local market and EMT companies can be very um competitive.
[8:46] Courtney Muchugu: They might not want to share um you know who they're working with and who they're receiving services from and how they're saving money.
[8:53] Courtney Muchugu: So when you go to one of these conferences and you're able to interact on a national scale with other owner operators, you don't feel that um you don't feel that local competition, right?
[9:04] Courtney Muchugu: And you're able to talk to people and um and have like really good um valuable conversations and I I think you end up leaving, you know, with a lot of resources.
[9:14] Courtney Muchugu: So I think joining something like NEMTAC, attending transportation conferences is really important.
[9:21] Courtney Muchugu: reaching out to brokers. Um sometimes, uh you could reach out to a broker and the broker knows which companies um that the other transportation companies are working with and they'll be able to say, "Hey, we have, you know,
[9:33] Courtney Muchugu: uh you know, five companies that are working with uh so- and so tracking company and you might want to check them out." You know, um so just talking to your broker as well and having a good relationship with
[9:43] Nirav Chheda: them could be helpful. Yeah, that's pretty key because I mean not every NEMT owner can actually go to the annual NEMTAC conference.
[9:52] Nirav Chheda: It's a great conference. Um but you know for the people who it's maybe not accessible to, you know, they're just not available to go or whatnot.
[10:00] Nirav Chheda: Um the broker you're saying is a good source to get these kinds of tips.
[10:05] Courtney Muchugu: Um any anyone Um I would still check out the NEMTAC um website.
[10:11] Courtney Muchugu: Um sometimes um uh they'll have a lot of helpful information.
[10:14] Courtney Muchugu: A lot of their sponsors as well.
[10:17] Courtney Muchugu: Um you know uh could be good resources.
[10:20] Courtney Muchugu: Um I would uh also check out CTAA and the transportation alliance.
[10:26] Courtney Muchugu: Um even though they don't specialize in NEMT, they still have a lot of valuable resources.
[10:32] Courtney Muchugu: Um even if you're just doing private pay, reaching out to a broker in your community could be helpful.
[10:37] Courtney Muchugu: It could be worth having a conversation with.
[10:39] Courtney Muchugu: Okay. um you know because they will know what's going on in the industry and they'll know what resources are available because their you know their companies are using them.
[10:48] Nirav Chheda: Um and of course like joining online webinars and um seeing what people are talking about single NEMT company I've talked with says that one of the most difficult things for them to do at this time is find drivers,
[11:12] Nirav Chheda: Um I'm sure you've experienced that.
[11:14] Nirav Chheda: Um any MT companies you consult for experience it like how do you actually find qualified drivers and recruit them?
[11:23] Courtney Muchugu: It would be a lot easier if brokers paid more [laughter] honestly.
[11:27] Courtney Muchugu: Um, I don't I think it's wrong that a lot of contracts uh the pricing has either gone down or made the same since minimum wage has changed so frequently over year after year.
[11:41] Courtney Muchugu: So, I don't think that's fair on companies.
[11:43] Courtney Muchugu: Um, I think that we'd be able to retain drivers a lot easier as well as um find qualified and uh decent drivers a lot easier if the pay was higher.
[11:52] Courtney Muchugu: And that's why I think you see a lot of people running from brokers to private pay because of that.
[11:56] Courtney Muchugu: Um, So, uh, as far as finding qualified drivers given that situation, um, uh, referrals always work well.
[12:07] Courtney Muchugu: Um, if you have a driver that works really well and you have a referral program in place, um, that helps.
[12:14] Courtney Muchugu: Um, and just constantly posting your job ad, whether that be on, um, uh, you know, Indeed or Zip Recruiter.
[12:22] Courtney Muchugu: Um, just utilizing different job hiring platforms and, um, and and, uh, you know, and being persistent.
[12:32] Courtney Muchugu: Um, also, um, from my experience when I was, uh, posting on um, I noticed that I wasn't getting a lot of clicks initially and, um, I would always get a call from one of the people from Indeed who
[12:46] Courtney Muchugu: said, you know, I'm your account specialist and I can help you.
[12:48] Courtney Muchugu: And for a long time, I had ignored that.
[12:51] Courtney Muchugu: And the day that I actually took the call, took the call and made time for her, my views went up like crazy and we were able to hire a lot more drivers cuz they're able to um They give
[13:01] Courtney Muchugu: you really good advice on how to um title your job, your job ad or you know, whatever you want to label it as, your help ad, whatever.
[13:10] Courtney Muchugu: Driver ad. So, they'll give you good advice on how to title it, what to put in, what to leave out.
[13:15] Courtney Muchugu: And I feel like after that, it was it, you know, it was very easy for me.
[13:19] Courtney Muchugu: I was I was able to get a lot more likes and um uh not likes but um what's it called?
[13:26] Courtney Muchugu: Um Views. A lot more views, a lot more applications.
[13:30] Nirav Chheda: Um and and this is indeed.com.
[13:33] Courtney Muchugu: Yeah, this was Indeed. So Indeed is very expensive.
[13:36] Courtney Muchugu: So I know a lot of people also, you know, hesitate to use it, but um it is for me it worked well.
[13:44] Courtney Muchugu: Um Craigslist is always going to be there.
[13:47] Nirav Chheda: yeah. So, okay. So, indeed.com, Craigslist, referrals from your existing drivers.
[13:57] Courtney Muchugu: And you might have, you know, like if you go to New York or you go to LA, there's going to like there's so many different like job posting platforms that are popular based on like what area that you're
[14:06] Courtney Muchugu: living in as well. So, it's just important to be familiar with that.
[14:09] Courtney Muchugu: you know, here in Western Massachusetts, you know, Indeed and Craigslist might be, you know, the best, you know, options here, but if you go to another city, it might be something different.
[14:18] Courtney Muchugu: And that's why research researching and understanding the market that you're in is really important.
[14:24] Nirav Chheda: Okay. So, you do that, you use those platforms and you find applicants.
[14:32] Nirav Chheda: The thing with NEMT is though, like not everyone who's a driver can be an NEM driver because NEMT requires more skills, right?
[14:42] Nirav Chheda: A driver has to be able to go door through door.
[14:45] Nirav Chheda: Sometimes they have to be able to handle wheelchair passengers.
[14:47] Nirav Chheda: They have to have the training on how to handle, you know, these kinds of medical transport trips.
[14:53] Nirav Chheda: Has that ever been an issue for you in, you know, being able to try to filter, you know, just anyone who can be a driver versus someone who can be an any empty driver?
[15:04] Nirav Chheda: And how do you filter through that and find, you know, the difference?
[15:07] Courtney Muchugu: Absolutely. It's just you have to invest the time into it.
[15:10] Courtney Muchugu: Out of 100 applicants, you might get 10 interviews.
[15:12] Courtney Muchugu: Out of those 10 interviews, five people might show up, you know, and out of those five, you're lucky if you hire one, you know, like, okay, I mean, it's you just got to you got to be persistent.
[15:21] Courtney Muchugu: You got to keep going. um be open and upfront with people over the phone um you know about what kind of a job it is and what the requirements are and ask them if they're interested.
[15:31] Courtney Muchugu: Um give them a reasonable timeline.
[15:34] Courtney Muchugu: Um I just the reason why I always say not to overpromise is I that's what I hear so many companies in this industry do is that they overpromise people things.
[15:43] Courtney Muchugu: Um, and once an employee can detect that you're overpromising or an applicant detects that you're overpromising them, you know, it turns them off.
[15:53] Courtney Muchugu: You know, from the job. So, just be realistic.
[15:55] Courtney Muchugu: Um, be honest. You know, for me to hire you would take about, you know, four weeks.
[15:59] Courtney Muchugu: Um, and some people pay for training, some people don't.
[16:03] Courtney Muchugu: Some people hire as, you know, independent contractors, some people hire as employees.
[16:06] Courtney Muchugu: So, uh, you just have to be upfront about your process and be open.
[16:10] Courtney Muchugu: Um, and be persistent. you know, you might not have luck immediately um with hiring.
[16:16] Courtney Muchugu: It might take some time. [music] would think it's really good to just make sure that you start off by hiring drivers um that are well trained and are safe drivers and um maintain a really good driving history for
[16:39] Courtney Muchugu: your company. set yourself up for future success because um if you start having a lot of claims, it's really you can't really recover from that overnight.
[16:48] Courtney Muchugu: You know, it's very difficult. Um and talk to your agent, see like if there's any local programs or what they recommend to reduce your rate.
[16:57] Courtney Muchugu: So, it might be as simple as, hey, the next time that you guys decide to um you know, renew the lease on your garage, you know, um why don't you look at this town instead because it, you know,
[17:08] Courtney Muchugu: it would bring down your insurance cost, you know, by thousands of dollars.
[17:13] Courtney Muchugu: And depending on how many vehicles you're running, obviously that cost can be more substantial.
[17:18] Courtney Muchugu: if you're saving, you know, $500 to $1,000 a car and you have 40 vehicles, you know, um is uh it looks a lot different than if you're running like only a couple You can also consider whether or not
[17:32] Courtney Muchugu: you really need comprehensive and collision.
[17:34] Courtney Muchugu: Um so analyzing like all of those and just working close with, you know, your agency.
[17:41] Nirav Chheda: So, that sounds like a big decision, like you know, deciding whether or not you even need comprehensive and collision insurance.
[17:50] Nirav Chheda: how do you really make that decision?
[17:53] Courtney Muchugu: For us, we never felt like we needed it because um we're working with with our own shop.
[18:00] Courtney Muchugu: So, if you have 40 vehicles, right, and let's say you're I'm just throwing out numbers, but let's say you have a vehicle and the insurance for a year without comprehensive in collision is 5,000.
[18:10] Courtney Muchugu: with it is 8,000 a year.
[18:13] Courtney Muchugu: So that's 3,000 time 40 vehicles.
[18:17] Courtney Muchugu: How likely is it that you're going to go through that much money in comprehensive and collision?
[18:21] Courtney Muchugu: Like Right. You know what I'm saying?
[18:23] Courtney Muchugu: Like we're throwing money out the window.
[18:25] Courtney Muchugu: We're better off replacing every single one of those cars, you know?
[18:28] Courtney Muchugu: If something were to happen to them, the math checks out.
[18:32] Courtney Muchugu: Yeah. So, and those are just random numbers, so don't quote me on those, but you know, like um you know, you have to really analyze and see whether or not it makes sense.
[18:41] Courtney Muchugu: If you're running newer vehicles and you have a lease or a loan on them, you might have to do comprehensive in collision and um and you don't have a choice.
[18:49] Courtney Muchugu: So, that might you might have to look maybe, you know, at um at what you could, you know, maybe what else could you take away from that?
[18:57] Courtney Muchugu: Maybe you just don't need rental, you know, coverage for that.
[19:00] Courtney Muchugu: you know, maybe you don't need roadside assistance with that.
[19:02] Courtney Muchugu: Maybe you have your, you know, another program on the side.
[19:05] Courtney Muchugu: So, just, you know, really looking at your plan, um, you know, your insurance plan, having your agency look over it and bringing that to another agency and having them look over it and give a second opinion on it,
[19:17] Courtney Muchugu: much like how you'd go to a second, you know, another doctor for a second opinion if you had a major, you know, um, if you had a major medical problem, you know.
[19:26] Nirav Chheda: Yeah. No, like what are the creative that you try to, you know, keep your Yeah.
[19:32] Courtney Muchugu: your choice. Um, picking and choosing more where you pick work.
[19:36] Courtney Muchugu: Um, avoiding certain cities and towns.
[19:38] Courtney Muchugu: Um, if you do work in the Boston area, for example, in Massachusetts, uh, your rates are going to be much higher.
[19:45] Nirav Chheda: Um, this is interesting. So, would you like decide to not take trips in a certain region because the insurance would be Yeah, it wouldn't be worth it.
[19:55] Courtney Muchugu: Yeah, because um your insurance company for this, they ask for a copy of your trip records, right?
[20:01] Courtney Muchugu: They don't need the client's name or anything like that, but they want to know which which towns like where is the vehicle traveling to pick up and drop offs.
[20:08] Courtney Muchugu: So, if they see that you're going East Boston, go out of business.
[20:12] Courtney Muchugu: It's too expensive. Way too expensive.
[20:14] Courtney Muchugu: But, you know, if they see that you're going to like a lot of the smaller towns, it's going to be less expensive.
[20:19] Courtney Muchugu: So, it might not make sense for you to pick up an extra handful of trips in the Boston area because it's going to make your insurance rate just go up so much more.
[20:31] Nirav Chheda: so would you then recommend like if someone really wanted to like be diligent about their insurance costs and profitability, like they should really strategically think about what kinds of locations in their area that they're doing trips in?
[20:49] Courtney Muchugu: Like maybe avoid urban Absolutely. So like, well, I'm not saying to avoid urban areas, right?
[20:55] Courtney Muchugu: up for some people they have to.
[20:56] Courtney Muchugu: But if you work with your insurance agency and they said, "Okay, like the lowest rates in um this state are going to be in these areas." They're the lowest for a reason, right?
[21:06] Courtney Muchugu: So, not only are you going to get lower insurance rates, your drivers are probably actually going to be less likely to get in an accident over there, So, you're setting yourself up a little bit better for success, you
[21:17] Courtney Muchugu: know? Yeah. in that re in that regard if you're a smaller company, you know, if and like I said, sometimes like you have to work in Boston or you're going to have to work in that larger city that
[21:27] Courtney Muchugu: has the larger rates. And then at that point, you know, maybe just ask, okay, what zip codes, what zip codes should I avoid?
[21:34] Courtney Muchugu: Or, you know, is there anything else I can do?
[21:35] Courtney Muchugu: You know, maybe if I garage them, you know, at night or over the weekend in a different area, does that help?
[21:42] Nirav Chheda: Email us at contact@bambi.health and we will get all of your questions responded to by email.
