Access to reliable transportation is critical for the elderly and disabled to obtain regular medical care and make appointments. Non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) services provide much-needed transportation options that help improve health outcomes in these populations.
The Benefits of Non-Emergency Medical Transportation
Non-emergency medical transportation includes services like wheelchair vans, ambulettes, and rides via taxi, or flight nurses that transport people to their healthcare appointments or cross-country. NEMT provides a number of important benefits:
- Improved access to care: NEMT enables the elderly and disabled to get to medical appointments, tests, and treatments they otherwise may not be able to access due to limited mobility or lack of transportation options. This improves adherence to recommended care.
- Reduced social isolation: NEMT gives seniors and those with disabilities a way to get out of the house and engage with the community, providing social connections on the rides and while waiting for appointments. This helps reduce loneliness and isolation.
- Maintained independence: By providing a means to get to healthcare services independently, NEMT allows the elderly and disabled to preserve their self-sufficiency and avoid relying on caregivers or family members for transportation.
- Cost savings: NEMT is more affordable than options like ambulance transport. It also helps patients avoid missed appointment fees due to lack of transportation. Preventive care made possible by NEMT also reduces costly medical issues.
Long-Distance NEMT
For patients needing medical transport over long distances, NEMT services can include air travel on commercial flights.
Long distance medical transport is designed to accommodate passengers with extra mobility, medical, or accessibility needs during air travel. Patients may arrange for a wheelchair or electric cart to get to the gate, book a service that provides highly trained medical professionals, have portable oxygen available during the flight, and more.
Airlines may require advanced notice to make the necessary preparations for passengers requiring medical assistance or transport devices.
Having a nurse trained in providing onboard medical aid can help ensure a safe and comfortable flight for patients with medical conditions.
With proper coordination ahead of time between the patient, airline, and medical transport service, NEMT via commercial flights allows patients to travel for care even if located far away from their destination treatment center.
Though more logistically challenging, air transport is an important component of NEMT, enabling patients to access distant specialized care not available locally.
Importance for the Elderly
Seniors may stop driving due to declining vision or health problems. Many elderly individuals live in communities without robust public transportation systems. This makes NEMT an essential service for this demographic.
NEMT enables seniors to access:
- Preventive and wellness care: Regular checkups, screenings, and chronic disease management.
- Urgent treatments: Lab tests, imaging, specialist visits.
- Ongoing therapies: Dialysis, chemotherapy, physical therapy.
- Medication: Transport to pharmacies to obtain prescribed medications.
For elderly patients with several doctors and frequent medical appointments, NEMT is often the only feasible means of getting to their regular care.
Accommodating Disabled Individuals
Disabled individuals often rely on others for transportation due to physical limitations, coordination issues, or inability to drive. NEMT provides necessary assistance through services like:
- Wheelchair-accessible vans: Allow patients using mobility devices to ride directly in their chair.
- Ambulette transport: Provides medical transport on a stretcher or bed for those who can’t sit upright.
- Door-through-door service: Drivers escort patients from their home to the appointment waiting area.
- Curb-to-curb service: Driver assists passenger from curbside pick-up into the vehicle and back out at destination.
- Long-distance medical transport via commercial airline
NEMT drivers and travel nurses are trained to safely secure mobility devices and provide needed physical assistance. Having transport with proper accommodations or a nurse accompanying the patient on a commercial flight makes it possible for disabled patients to travel from A to B safely.
Accessing Non-Emergency Medical Transportation
Public and private insurance generally provides coverage for NEMT to in-network medical care. Medicaid and Medicare recipients can utilize NEMT benefits to facilitate access to doctors, therapists, labs, pharmacies, and other services.
Those without insurance can look into options like local transport voucher programs or medical transportation organizations. Knowing what NEMT services are available in your area makes it possible to find the assistance needed to access healthcare.
For the elderly and disabled, getting to their doctors is often one of the biggest barriers to managing their health. Non-emergency medical transportation helps overcome this obstacle and empowers these individuals to obtain regular preventive and maintenance care.
