Transportation. Something that we all rely on to get around, yet we don’t really question it until we don’t have the means to get somewhere. I remembering being in the hospital and they were explaining to me about my new wheelchair and they kept saying how since I have Medicaid, they should offer transportation. At the time, I thought, oh cool, I won’t have to worry about getting to my medical appointments when I get home. Then reality hit.
I was home. I needed to get to appointments, so I called Medicaid to talk about scheduling transportation. The call with the lady I talked to went so smoothly about setting up transportation, that I thought I was all set. The day came for my appointment, and I hadn’t heard anything, so I called. Medicaid told me that it’s third party. They send the ticket out, and it’s up to the third party to pick up the ticket. Basically they told me they can’t help me. I had to cancel that doctor’s appointment last minute.
My next appointment, the driver showed up, and he spent the entire car ride telling me how in most cases, I would just be told the driver is delayed, or I would hear nothing. The only reason he came is because he heard it was a hospital visit, and he heard that I was in a wheelchair. He took me home too, which I was thankful for. From that point on, no one ever came from transportation no matter how many times I called to schedule or to make sure that I was scheduled. Medicaid’s only response to me has been that they do offer transportation because they scheduled me, but it’s their third party that picks and chooses which ticket to pick up. I have found that unless you’re in a large urban area, the offer for transportation is not actually accessible.
There should be more accountability towards these third parties to pick up Medicaid patients. Otherwise Medicaid needs to compensate, because renting a wheelchair-accessible van is not cheap, and I have had to rent them every week just to make it to appointments.
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