About this episode
Ray Hagan, president of JARPEC and vice president of WellTrans in Indiana, runs a broker network reaching all 92 counties with roughly 170 transportation providers and more than 1,400 credentialed vehicles. WellTrans completed over 800,000 legs of transportation last year on about a 70/30 rural to urban split, built on a zero fail rule and what Hagan calls a three-legged stool of managed care client, broker and provider. Rather than dictate coverage, he maps 50 or 60 legs in an underserved area, estimates the six to eight vehicles it takes, then asks a provider what portion they can genuinely accept.
Key takeaways
- Indiana stacks roughly seven managed care organizations and four brokers, and all four brokers cover all 92 counties, so providers are fielding blind, overlapping trip offers from competitors every day.
- Hagan asks Indianapolis-based providers to relocate drivers 45 minutes south to Bloomington and surrounding counties, and backfills whatever they cannot take with councils on aging and local transit authorities.
- WellTrans requires a signature on every trip. Native integration pushes those signatures, times, miles and cost straight into claims, which Hagan says cuts one to two weeks off provider reimbursement.
- The in-house fleet exists only for emergency recovery: a provider vehicle breakdown, an escalated member who does not ride well with others, or an urgent trip nobody can reach in the window.
- Hagan and WellTrans' CEO drove two hours to collect a member who had just switched plans, then took them 180 miles to a liver transplant they had six hours to reach.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:00 Ray Hagan's Journey into the NEMT Industry
- 5:25 Building WellTrans and Its Unique Approach for Rural Providers
- 7:00 Strategic Placement and Partnering with Transportation Providers
- 8:00 Challenges and Communication in NEMT Operations
- 15:00 Scaling Operations and Technology Integration
- 23:00 WellTrans' Use of Bambi Dispatching Software
- 38:44 RUN BAMBI RUN!!
