About this episode
Cho Ndiforchu, the NEMTAC 2025 Provider of the Year, registered Skyline Transport in Brandon, Florida in early 2022 and then left his vans parked in his own driveway until his first trip at the end of 2023. Two years on he runs six vehicles, close to 20 facility accounts, and a volume split near 50/50 between his single broker and everything else. He bought Skyline's first building two months before taping, and calls recruiting his hardest problem: 20 to 25 Indeed applications arrive every day and almost all are rejected.
Key takeaways
- An uncle in Virginia pushed him toward home health. Ndiforchu picked NEMT instead because he travels for other businesses and thought transportation would be less hands on. It was not.
- Brokers start you small on purpose. Skyline was onboarded for one service area and given trips here and there, and volume only grew once the broker saw it perform.
- Local trainers would only certify their own drivers, so Ndiforchu became a CTAA trainer and now teaches anyone every other Saturday. One competitor left his course page a one star review for emailing them.
- The first building changed the team. Drivers used to swap vehicles and leave without meeting each other. They now overlap in the mornings, and inspections moved in house.
- He credits NEMTAC networking for the growth and points new providers at the next conference, which he places in Orlando around August 16 to 19.
Chapters
- 0:00 <Untitled Chapter 1>
- 0:42 Meet Cho Deforu of Skyline Transport
- 1:42 Why Cho chose NEMT over Home Health
- 4:26 Starting the business in 2022 vs. launching in 2023
- 5:42 How to get your first trips with a broker
- 8:13 Lessons from being an owner-operator (The "Organic" Way)
- 10:48 Diversifying revenue: Private pay and hospital contracts
- 14:17 Moving from a driveway to a physical facility
- 15:44 Winning the NEMTAC 2025 Provider of the Year Award
- 19:03 Why you should train your "competitors"
- 25:31 The biggest challenge: Recruiting the right people
- 28:50 The importance of NEMTAC conferences and networking
