Within the first week that Austin Correll was driving for Lyft in the fall of 2021, he was sent to pick up passengers at an address that turned out to be for a hospital. When he pulled up to the curb, he found an elderly woman in a wheelchair and another other with a walker, waiting for him — flanked by four or five nurses.

Full story from the verge

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Excerpts:

They literally are just sending normal drivers to do medical transport:

Drivers who do not sign up for Lyft and Uber’s assisted programs can be sent NEMT rides without any training. Drivers who want to participate in the assisted programs are required to take tutorials created by the Open Doors Organization (ODO), a non-profit organization that aims to “teach businesses how to succeed in the disability market.” They don’t include medical or emergency information, a spokesman for the company says: “I’d say it’s more just about customer service.”

A PR rep for Lyft says Lyft Healthcare should not be used for people who have “medical needs,”

  • Jadzia_Dax [she/her]M
    ·
    3 years ago

    For the past few years, rideshare companies Lyft and Uber have been moving into the non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) business, offering their networks to healthcare organizations that need to schedule rides for patients. Correll isn’t sure if his ride was through a formal NEMT program, but it could have been: to protect patient privacy, drivers aren’t told if their rides are from healthcare partnerships or not.

    Wow, this bullshit smells like bullshit!

    NEMT is used as a way to help low-income patients and Medicaid recipients get to appointments they might otherwise miss because they lack access to transportation. The need for such services is significant: millions of people in the United States, mostly low income, miss doctors’ appointments each year because of transportation barriers, costing the health system billions of dollars. But while NEMT is often done through dedicated companies, rideshare groups are now interested in what’s estimated to be a $3 billion market.

    If only there were some way to have reliable medical transport.

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Are they still calling it rideshares? Nobody can seriously believe that it's not a taxi-service but just random drivers who by pure coincidence happens to be going from where you are to the place you want to go to.

    • Jadzia_Dax [she/her]M
      ·
      3 years ago

      Notably, rideshare programs are also much cheaper and lead to cost savings for health systems and insurers (rides are subsidized by the companies, making for a cheaper product even as the business is unprofitable).

      They’re literally not making money and are just undercutting what little shitty medical infrastructure Amerika has to get market dominance.

      More research is needed to get a good understanding of the role rideshare can play in NEMT, Eisenberg says. It’s hard to do rigorous research, though, because the rideshare companies, like most technology companies, are reluctant to share their own data.

      Should be a pre-req for them even getting to pilot test.

      Drivers who do not sign up for Lyft and Uber’s assisted programs can be sent NEMT rides without any training. Drivers who want to participate in the assisted programs are required to take tutorials created by the Open Doors Organization (ODO), a non-profit organization that aims to “teach businesses how to succeed in the disability market.” They don’t include medical or emergency information, a spokesman for the company says: “I’d say it’s more just about customer service.”

      • Jadzia_Dax [she/her]M
        ·
        3 years ago

        A PR rep for Lyft says Lyft Healthcare should not be used for people who have “medical needs,”. In an interview, he said Lyft aims to handle non-emergency transport for riders with fewer needs so that traditional medical transport groups could focus on rides “at the top of their license.”

        :agony-deep: