About this episode
Patricia Curnan started Prime Medical Transport on Cape Cod, Massachusetts at the end of 2013 with two vehicles, after caring for her mother post stroke and finding nothing available locally but an ambulance company's old hightop wheelchair vans. She now runs 13 vehicles, ten of them wheelchair and two of those stretcher capable, averaging 65 trips a day across about 11 and a half vehicles, with 60 percent of the work private pay and 40 percent broker. Curnan manages the business on driver labor as a share of revenue and booked $143,000 in her best month.
Key takeaways
- Curnan ignores cost per mile and manages to labor percent instead: 28 to 30 percent of revenue for drivers, with another 10 to 12 percent of overhead for admin.
- When labor drifts out of band she works backward to the cause, checking cancellations, trips priced wrong, too many broker trips landing in one day, and drivers routed too far out of the way.
- The average Prime driver is 57. Fifteen drivers, nine full time and six part time, many on a second retirement job working two or three days a week and uninterested in overtime.
- Private pay is 60 percent of the book against 40 percent broker across three brokers, and Curnan is pushing further that way by expanding to the South Shore and partnering with home health agencies.
- Two motorized stair chairs let Prime take a Plymouth patient with eight steps into the house who other companies refuse, and Curnan has one Broda Traversa on order for stretcher work.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:45 Overview of Prime Medical Transport
- 5:25 Evolution of the business over 11 years
- 6:01 Long-term goals of the business
- 8:31 Business stats/numbers
- 11:35 Introducing Broda's Traversa chair
- 14:47 Key business metric to measure
- 20:22 Company culture is key
- 26:28 Promoting business on social media
- 30:06 NEMT stories
- 34:57 Final takeaway
