What is Ride to Care?
Ride to Care provides free non-emergent (not for an emergency) medical transportation, or NEMT. Transportation services include vehicle-provided shared rides, public transportation passes or mileage reimbursement.
The Ride to Care program consists of five different partner organizations all working together to assist members with their NEMT transportation needs: CareOregon, Ecolane, ComTrans, Transdev and Ride Connection. When CareOregon took on management of the Ride to Care network, they identified and partnered with local agencies that are experts in their areas of work.
CareOregon manages and oversees the Ride to Care program on behalf of Health Share of Oregon.
Ecolane is the software system that provides web-based and demand-response transit scheduling utilized by all operational partners.
ComTrans manages and provides dispatch services, same day call center and daily monitoring of all scheduled transportation.
Transdev (formerly First Transit) manages the scheduling of future trips, the primary call center, and provides quality assurance of the grievance system.
Ride Connection manages the reimbursement process and the network of transportation providers to ensure drivers meet necessary training and credentialing requirements.
Ride to Care works with approximately 60 contracted transportation providers, providing on average more than 1,500 completed trips per day and 46,000 per month.
Ride to Care partners with local public transit agencies to purchase passes for members to utilize bus and light-rail systems, providing on average more than 500 trips per day and 17,000 per month.
Ride to Care also empowers those with their own access to their own vehicles or family or friends, and offers reimbursement for local appointments and for out of CCO service area. Reimbursement trips account for on average more than 120 trips per day and 3,700 per month.
| Total volume by mode (completed trips) |
Total | Monthly Average | Daily Average |
| Mileage reimbursement | 31,488 | 2,624 | 86 |
| Public transportation | 215,385 | 17,949 | 590 |
| Vehicle provided rides | 514,957 | 42,913 | 1,411 |
When people talk about Medicaid in Oregon, you may hear them say a lot of different names or letters like we mentioned above. That’s because there are many organizations involved in making sure you get the care you deserve. How can you make sense of it all?
See the image below to find out how Oregon's health care systems and Ride to Care are all connected:
Download this graphic in the language of your choice:
What is NEMT?
NEMT is a Medicaid benefit offered for Oregon Health Plan (OHP) recipients that provides transportation services to Medicaid-covered services. Health Share of Oregon is a coordinated care organization (CCO) that provides OHP-covered services for members living in the tri-county area: Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties. Ride to Care is the name of program that provides NEMT services (trips) for eligible Health Share members in the tri-county area. The trips get you to health care visits that Health Share pays for. That could be a doctor, dentist, mental health counselor or others.
What are Flex Trips?
Health-related services is an option for CCOs to offer additional social health supports to members. Ride to Care utilizes its contracted NEMT providers to offer expanded options not covered under the benefit. These trips offer members additional transportation options to meet their social needs to support positive health outcomes. These can be trips to go to housing appointments, access fresh foods and more.
