LeadingAge NY met with Department of Health (DOH) Office of Aging and Long-Term Care (OALTC) staff and Medical Answering Service (MAS) to address ongoing concerns with fee-for-service non-emergent Medicaid transportation. Nursing home, adult care facility (ACF), and adult day health care (ADHC) residents and registrants have been experiencing a significant number of last-minute transportation cancellations to primary care, post-operative, and specialty care appointments.

LeadingAge NY provided DOH and MAS with a compilation of member challenges, which include cancelled appointments with late or no notice; lack of access to transportation during evenings and on weekends; lack of access to transportation for hospital discharges and follow-ups; lack of access to vendors in general, and wheelchair and stretcher services; and concern with the lack of quality and professionalism required to provide services to this vulnerable population.

MAS President Russ Maxwell agreed that there are systemic issues that need to be addressed. MAS will be drilling down on individual member challenges to resolve issues and will also be rolling out a process by which members will be able to engage with a preferred vendor to avoid trip cancellation issues. This is a work in progress, though MAS stated that they already have around 100 of these arrangements. Providers will have a specific vendor they can communicate with directly, which will be responsible for most of the work for the provider. 

MAS will also be providing additional education on their process and portals to ensure appropriate service.

LeadingAge NY pointed out the 72-hour notice time for scheduling, and MAS stated that this is not required for post-operative appointment and discharge scenarios. According to MAS, this option should already be available in the system. We pointed out that while this may be their policy, this may not be available in practice.

LeadingAge NY pointed out that primary care offices are sometimes dropping patients from practices due to numerous cancellations. Further, dropped appointments have a significant impact on patient access to care. Families are also discouraged when appointments are cancelled with no notice.

Members should be hearing from MAS if they have reached out with their concerns. Please feel free to email us with your thoughts or concerns about those meetings. MAS will establish a status log of the challenges and will be keeping us up to date. We will meet again in late July or August.

For members who have not yet communicated their concerns to us, please email Meg Everett at meverett@leadingageny.org or Karen Lipson at klipson@leadingageny.org.