Can someone on probation or parole drive NEMT?

Not under MTM's standard provider agreement, which bars drivers who are on work release, probation, or parole, or who face a pending charge that would rule them out if it ended in a conviction. Other brokers and states write their own rules, so read each contract. Texas adds a reporting duty: the provider has 10 business days to give the health plan written notice of a driver's conviction, felony charge, or registry listing.

Does a DUI disqualify a NEMT driver?

For a while, in most programs. Texas health plans bar a DWI or DUI conviction from the seven years leading up to hire, and any such conviction after hire. Louisiana Medicaid rules out a driver convicted of driving while intoxicated during the last three years, and MTM's agreement bars substance abuse convictions within seven years or the period state law sets. A felony DUI can also fall under a broker's general felony rule.

Do expunged or sealed convictions count against a NEMT driver?

Usually not. Louisiana's Medicaid manual accepts a driver whose conviction was pardoned or expunged. California employers may never consider sealed, dismissed, or expunged convictions, and New York City employers may not consider sealed cases. In New York State, a certificate of relief from disabilities or of good conduct creates a legal presumption that the person is rehabilitated.

Is there a tax credit for hiring a driver with a felony?

Not for anyone who started work in 2026, unless Congress renews it. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit covered qualified ex-felons hired within a year of a felony conviction or release from prison, but the IRS lists it only for people who began work on or before December 31, 2025. The Department of Labor's Federal Bonding Program still gives employers a free $5,000 fidelity bond covering the first six months of a justice-involved hire.

Can I refuse every applicant who has a felony?

It is risky. Your contracts already name the offenses that disqualify a driver, and a blanket ban goes further than they require. California and New York require an individual look at each record, and New York City adds written notice and a response period. The EEOC's 2012 guidance also recommends individualized assessment, although federal enforcement of disparate-impact claims changed in June 2026.

Is there a time limit on the convictions a background check shows?

Convictions can appear no matter how old they are. The Fair Credit Reporting Act generally stops screening companies from reporting arrest records older than seven years, unless the job pays $75,000 a year or more, but it sets no age limit on convictions. Some states go further: California employers may not consider most convictions more than seven years old.

Drivers and vehicles

Hiring NEMT drivers with a criminal record: disqualifying offenses and lookback periods

Updated September 29, 202611 min read

Often, yes. No federal rule bars every felony from NEMT work. Eligibility turns on the offense, how long ago it happened, and whose rules apply: the OIG exclusion list, the state Medicaid rules, and each broker contract. Texas health plans impose seven-year bars on many offenses and a permanent bar for abusing vulnerable people, while MTM's standard agreement bars sexual and violent crimes however old.

On this page

The short answer: the offense, the clock, and the contract

A felony on an application does not settle anything by itself. Three sets of rules decide whether a person can drive Medicaid riders, and a driver has to clear all three:

Layer	What it decides	Where it is written
Federal Medicaid law	No one excluded from federal health programs may drive paid Medicaid trips	42 U.S.C. 1396a(a)(87) and the OIG exclusion list
State Medicaid program	Which offenses disqualify a driver, and for how long	The state NEMT manual, managed care handbook, or broker requirements the state sets
Broker or health plan contract	Extra bars, recheck schedules, and who can approve an exception	Your transportation provider agreement

Employment law then limits how you use a record: when you may ask, what you may weigh, and which notices you owe the applicant. Your auto insurer can also decline to cover a driver, so check with your agent before you make an offer.

The federal rule is about exclusion, not felonies

Federal law gives every state a short checklist for NEMT drivers paid through Medicaid. Each state must have a process, and an attestation can satisfy it, that covers four points: the driver appears on no federal exclusion list, the driver’s license is valid, the provider has set procedures for violations of state drug law, and the provider can disclose every driver’s driving record, traffic violations included, to the state Medicaid program (CMS guide SMD 23-006).

Exclusion is the one piece that works as a hard federal ban. The HHS Office of Inspector General must exclude people convicted of certain crimes and may exclude others:

Conviction	OIG action	Length
A crime related to Medicare, Medicaid, or another federal health program	Mandatory exclusion	At least 5 years
Patient abuse or neglect	Mandatory exclusion	At least 5 years
Felony health care fraud	Mandatory exclusion	At least 5 years
Felony involving a controlled substance	Mandatory exclusion	At least 5 years
Misdemeanor health care fraud, or a misdemeanor controlled substance offense	Permissive exclusion	3-year baseline
A second mandatory-category conviction	Mandatory exclusion	At least 10 years
A third or later mandatory-category conviction	Mandatory exclusion	Permanent

Two details trip up employers. Exclusion is an action OIG takes, so the question is whether the person appears on the LEIE, not whether the crime fits a category on paper. And exclusion does not end on its own: OIG says an excluded person must apply for reinstatement and receive written notice that it was granted. No federal health program pays for work done by an excluded person, and that ban extends to any company that hires one or contracts with one. OIG refreshes the list monthly.

Disqualifying offenses and lookback periods by program

The detailed bars come from states and brokers, and they differ in what they list and how long each bar lasts. Five examples:

Program	Barred with no time limit	Barred for a set period	Other conditions
Texas Medicaid managed care (HHSC Uniform Managed Care Manual 16.4)	Abuse, neglect, or exploitation of children, elderly people, or people with disabilities. Acts prohibited by the state’s Medicaid fraud law.	During the seven years before the hire date, or after hire: Penal Code offenses against the person, the family, public order or decency, public health, safety or morals, or property, and Texas Controlled Substances Act offenses	Deferred adjudication counts for the DWI bar and for reporting new cases. A conviction after hire makes the driver ineligible for seven years.
MTM provider agreement dated January 1, 2023	Any conviction for a sexual or violent crime	Felonies within seven years are allowed only if MTM’s client approves. Substance abuse convictions: seven years, or the state’s period.	No drivers on work release, probation, or parole, or facing a charge that would disqualify them. A no contest plea counts as a conviction.
Virginia fee-for-service NEMT (DMAS, May 26, 2026)	Barrier crimes as defined in Virginia law	No period stated	Criminal records from the state police or a national database, plus the sex offender registry, checked before the driver carries a member
Louisiana Medicaid (Services Manual section 10.3, July 14, 2025)	Crimes barred by La. R.S. 40:1203.1 through 40:1203.7. A pardon or an expungement lifts the bar.	No period stated	A yearly criminal history check, done by the State Police, an agency approved by it, or the FBI, and sent directly to the broker
Mississippi NET broker program (Title 23, Part 201, Rule 2.6)	Crimes listed in Miss. Code 43-13-121	No period stated	A national and state background check before the first trip

Three habits keep you from misreading these rules:

Match the rule’s words, not the court’s label. Texas counts deferred adjudication for its DWI bar and its reporting duty, and MTM counts a no contest plea, even where state law might not call either one a conviction.
Count from the date the rule names. Texas counts back seven years from the hire date. MTM’s felony window is the last seven years. Write down the date you counted from.
Watch for new charges after hire. Texas providers have 10 business days to notify the health plan in writing of a driver’s conviction, felony charge, or sex offender registration. MTM asks to hear right away about any criminal charge or investigation involving a driver.

City permits can add bars of their own. Portland, Oregon, will not certify a NEMT driver with any felony conviction in the past 10 years, or with a felony involving physical harm or attempted harm to a person at any time, counting from the conviction date.

The state guides for Texas, Virginia, and Louisiana cover each program’s other driver rules, and our overview of NEMT driver requirements compares states side by side.

Driving offenses run on shorter clocks

Many applicants with a record have a driving offense, and those rules count years differently:

Program	Driving record limits
Virginia DMAS	Two chargeable accidents or moving violations in three years is the maximum. Points on the Virginia DMV record cannot drop past minus 2. A license suspended or revoked for moving violations during the last five years disqualifies the driver.
MTM agreement	At most two at-fault moving violation convictions and one at-fault accident with injury or damage, counted over 36 months. No suspended, expired, or revoked license.
Texas UMCM 16.4	No DWI or DUI conviction (deferred adjudication counts) from seven years before hire onward. A second moving violation within a rolling 12-month window disqualifies.
Louisiana Medicaid	Under three moving violations, and no conviction for driving while intoxicated, over the past three years
Mississippi	Removed from service after losing the license to suspension or revocation over moving violations in the last five years, or after two moving violations or accidents on broker trips

MTM treats every accident as the driver’s fault until the driver proves otherwise, and it wants a police report to back up any claim of no fault. Pull a fresh motor vehicle record at hire and on every schedule your contracts set.

When the rules leave the decision to you

Many records fall outside every list. For example, a property crime from nine years ago falls outside the Texas seven-year window, and a nonviolent felony from twelve years ago falls outside MTM’s. Those calls are yours. The EEOC’s 2012 guidance on arrest and conviction records lays out a method that doubles as a written record of your reasoning:

Treat an arrest as a lead, not a finding. The guidance says an arrest does not prove a crime happened. You may act on the conduct behind it if you can confirm that conduct.
Weigh three factors. How serious the offense was, how much time has passed since the offense or the end of the sentence, and what the job involves. A NEMT driver is often alone with riders who are frail, confused, or unable to leave the van without help.
Hear the applicant out. Explain that the record may rule them out, then consider what they bring: errors in the report, the facts behind the offense, their age at the time, work history since, training, references, and bonding.
Use federal bars as written. Following a federal rule, such as refusing someone on the exclusion list, is a defense. A policy that reaches further than the law requires is judged on its own merits.

The guidance also discusses El v. SEPTA, a Third Circuit case over a transit agency’s lifetime ban on violent convictions for paratransit drivers. The court ruled for the agency, but it said a screen like that has to separate applicants who pose an unacceptable level of risk from those who do not.

The federal picture changed this year. In a June 9, 2026 announcement, the Justice Department reported a finding by its Office of Legal Counsel that the EEOC’s Title VII disparate-impact guidelines are unconstitutional. Under that view, an employer needs only a reasonable, useful, or valid business purpose for a hiring practice, and the announcement listed criminal background checks among the tools employers can keep using. The opinion addresses disparate impact only. Hiring one applicant and rejecting another with a similar record because of race or another protected trait is still intentional discrimination, and state and city fair chance laws are unaffected.

Fair chance laws change the order and the paperwork

Some states and cities control when you may ask about a record and what you owe the applicant before saying no. Three examples:

Law	Who it covers	Main rules
California Fair Chance Act (Gov. Code 12952)	Employers with 5 or more employees	No conviction questions or checks before a conditional offer. Off limits at any stage: most arrests that led to no conviction, sealed, dismissed, or expunged records, cases closed through diversion, and convictions over seven years old. An individualized assessment, a written notice that includes the report, and a response window of at least 5 business days, extended to 10 when the applicant challenges the report’s accuracy.
New York Correction Law Article 23-A	Private employers with 10 or more employees	Deny only for a direct relationship to the job or an unreasonable risk, after weighing eight listed factors. A certificate of relief from disabilities or of good conduct creates a presumption of rehabilitation. Written reasons within 30 days of a request.
New York City Fair Chance Act	Employers with 4 or more employees	No criminal history inquiry before a conditional offer. A written Fair Chance Analysis using the Article 23-A factors, shared with the applicant along with the check, then a response period of five business days or more. Pending cases are covered too.

Exemptions matter in NEMT. California’s law carves out jobs where another law requires screening or restricts who can be hired because of criminal history, and Article 23-A gives way where a law imposes a mandatory bar. Even for an exempt job, California’s Civil Rights Department says a criminal history rule that screens out a protected group needs a legitimate business reason. A broker clause is a contract term rather than a law, so ask an employment lawyer before you treat it as an exemption. The California and New York state guides cover each program’s other rules.

A decision process that holds up at audit

Write one policy listing every hard bar from your state program and each contract, with its lookback period.
Make a conditional offer first wherever a fair chance law requires it.
Get written consent on a standalone disclosure before a screening company runs a report. Our guide to NEMT driver background checks covers the searches and the consent forms.
Run every required search: criminal history at the level your contracts name, sex offender registries, the OIG and SAM exclusion lists, any state exclusion list, and the driving record.
Apply the hard bars exactly as written. If the offense and its date fall inside a listed bar, the person cannot drive those trips.
Assess everything else individually, using the offense, the time since, the job, and what the applicant tells you.
Warn before you reject. When a report is the reason, first give the applicant a copy of it and the FCRA summary of rights, and a fair chance to point out errors.
Then send the final notice. It names the screening company, says the decision was yours rather than the company’s, and explains that the applicant can dispute the report and can ask the company for another free copy within 60 days.
Rescreen on schedule. MTM wants a new criminal check every year. Texas requires registry checks every year and the LEIE and SAM searches every month.

What to record for each decision

A one-page record per applicant answers most audit and complaint questions:

the searches run, their dates, and the screening company used
each offense found, its date, and how the case ended
the contract or state bar that applied, quoted word for word, or a note that none did
for an individual assessment: the duties you weighed, the time since the offense, what the applicant provided, and your reasons
copies of each notice, the dates sent, and any reply

Keep these records confidential and limit who can see them. The FTC expects you to destroy reports securely when you no longer need them, by shredding paper and wiping electronic files so they cannot be rebuilt. The driver file checklist shows where the rest of each driver’s paperwork goes.

Programs that lower the risk of a second-chance hire

Federal Bonding Program. The U.S. Department of Labor created it in 1966. Employers get a free fidelity bond for a justice-involved hire: $5,000 of coverage with no deductible for the first six months of employment. The program keeps a bonding coordinator in each state.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit. The credit covered a qualified ex-felon hired within a year of a felony conviction or release from prison. The IRS lists it only for people who began work on or before December 31, 2025, so check its page before you count on it for a newer hire.

Keeping driver checks on schedule in HealthRide

Record each driver’s credentials in HealthRide, such as the license and the annual background check, with their expiration dates, and HealthRide reminds you before one lapses. If a required credential has expired, HealthRide flags it the moment a dispatcher tries to put that driver on a trip, so a missed recheck is caught before the ride. Driver and vehicle credentials sit together in fleet management.

Frequently asked questions

Can someone on probation or parole drive NEMT?: Not under MTM's standard provider agreement, which bars drivers who are on work release, probation, or parole, or who face a pending charge that would rule them out if it ended in a conviction. Other brokers and states write their own rules, so read each contract. Texas adds a reporting duty: the provider has 10 business days to give the health plan written notice of a driver's conviction, felony charge, or registry listing.
Does a DUI disqualify a NEMT driver?: For a while, in most programs. Texas health plans bar a DWI or DUI conviction from the seven years leading up to hire, and any such conviction after hire. Louisiana Medicaid rules out a driver convicted of driving while intoxicated during the last three years, and MTM's agreement bars substance abuse convictions within seven years or the period state law sets. A felony DUI can also fall under a broker's general felony rule.
Do expunged or sealed convictions count against a NEMT driver?: Usually not. Louisiana's Medicaid manual accepts a driver whose conviction was pardoned or expunged. California employers may never consider sealed, dismissed, or expunged convictions, and New York City employers may not consider sealed cases. In New York State, a certificate of relief from disabilities or of good conduct creates a legal presumption that the person is rehabilitated.
Is there a tax credit for hiring a driver with a felony?: Not for anyone who started work in 2026, unless Congress renews it. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit covered qualified ex-felons hired within a year of a felony conviction or release from prison, but the IRS lists it only for people who began work on or before December 31, 2025. The Department of Labor's Federal Bonding Program still gives employers a free $5,000 fidelity bond covering the first six months of a justice-involved hire.
Can I refuse every applicant who has a felony?: It is risky. Your contracts already name the offenses that disqualify a driver, and a blanket ban goes further than they require. California and New York require an individual look at each record, and New York City adds written notice and a response period. The EEOC's 2012 guidance also recommends individualized assessment, although federal enforcement of disparate-impact claims changed in June 2026.
Is there a time limit on the convictions a background check shows?: Convictions can appear no matter how old they are. The Fair Credit Reporting Act generally stops screening companies from reporting arrest records older than seven years, unless the job pays $75,000 a year or more, but it sets no age limit on convictions. Some states go further: California employers may not consider most convictions more than seven years old.