Medicaid Transport Firm Trims Drivers

Patients Say Service Has Become Unreliable

The company that oversees the transport of more than 50,000 Medicaid patients in the District has downsized its pool of contract drivers, leaving some clients to complain that the service is too unreliable to get them to important health-care appointments.

The Missouri-based Medical Transportation Management, which struggled with similar complaints after taking over in October, severed ties with several dozen drivers in July to save money and reconfigure its service strategy, said Sandra Whittaker, an MTM spokeswoman. The Washington Post calculates that the number of drivers dismissed is about 60. MTM would only confirm that it has contracts with 21 drivers and previously had as many as 87.

"All of a sudden. I was called and told I had new transportation," said Betty Turner, a kidney dialysis patient who takes a van to treatment three times a week. Last week, when Turner was still weak after dialysis, she waited an hour for her new driver. Fed up, she then rolled 1 1/2 miles home in her electric wheelchair.

"I tell you, my family wasn't happy about that," Turner, 60, said. "It took an hour to get home, and something could have happened."

Whittaker said the company is addressing such disruptions and is in the process of redirecting more patients to rail and bus services. The company coordinates government-provided rail, bus, MetroAccess and van transportation. It does not own any vehicles, employs drivers with vans as subcontractors and now has 21 van drivers, she said.

Currently, MTM coordinates about 4,000 trips a month using public transportation and 48,000 with van services, according to company reports submitted to the District's Health Department.

"Very frankly, MTM was losing money before," said Rob Maruca, senior deputy director of the Medical Assistance Administration for the District. "They are going to have to move people to Metrobus and Metrorail just to break even."

Some drivers who lost contracts, however, said that MTM owes them thousands of dollars and that the downsizing is MTM's effort to avoid that debt.

MTM said it is operating in good faith.

Meanwhile, some clients say they're stuck in the middle.

Elaine Pope, the daughter of a dialysis patient whose new driver did not show up for several days, has run out of patience. "Don't they know she can die if she misses her appointment?" Pope said of her 82-year-old mother, Mavis Cheek.

Cheek waited more than an hour for a driver to arrive last week. Finally, Cheek called her son-in-law to pick her up. After four days of calling MTM, Pope was able to arrange a driver for her mother.