NEMT broker payment schedules: submission deadlines and pay cycles, broker by broker

Every broker pay term is really three clocks in a row. The first is how long you have to submit a trip after the date of service. The second is how long the broker takes to accept the claim as clean or uncontested. The third is when its payment run goes out. A trip is paid only after all three have run, and the total is what your cash flow has to cover. Below are the published terms for the brokers and programs that post them, each with the date of the document it comes from. Rates and penalty amounts live in your own agreement and rate sheet.

The terms, broker by broker

The table lists brokers whose own documents state both a submission rule and a payment rule. Terms change when contracts renew, so check the date against the agreement you signed.

A few details behind those rows matter in practice:

• MART billing cycles. Depending on the program, the cycle closes twice a month or once, and invoices go in through MART’s vendor portal. MART then has six business days after the close to finalize every provider invoice, and the 45-day count begins only after that.
• Verida remittances. Each payment cycle comes with a remittance advice listing the claims it covers, so every deposit can be tied back to trips.
• Holiday dates. When a WellTrans payment date lands on a holiday, the money goes out the following weekday. Modivcare’s Mississippi manual moves a holiday payment to the next business day.

The broker billing guide covers what each trip record needs before any of these clocks start.

One broker, several calendars

The same name on the agreement does not mean the same schedule. MTM shows how terms vary program by program, beyond the standard agreement in the table:

• MTM in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin provider page lists weekly payment by direct deposit.
• MTM in Rhode Island. The handbook updated July 1, 2026 allows 90 days after the ride to file. For appealing a denied claim it gives two limits that disagree: one section allows 365 calendar days, while the portal instructions later in the handbook allow 90 days from the denial. Work to the shorter one.
• MTM in Virginia. Virginia’s fee-for-service rides passed from Modivcare to MTM at the start of October 2026. The Virginia handbook MTM published (approved August 10, 2026) sets a six-month filing window for clean claims, measured from the ride. When Medicare is billed first, the six months run from Medicare’s denial.

Both handbooks define a clean claim the same way. The trip must sit in completed status, and its electronic log needs six entries: MTM’s trip ID, the planned pickup, the real pickup, when the van left, when it arrived, and the member’s signature. Leave one blank and MTM denies the claim. The glossary entry on clean claims covers the general idea.

Where the state sets the clock

Some state Medicaid agencies write payment timing into their broker contracts or manuals, which gives providers a floor even when their own agreement is thin.

• Georgia. Section 702.1 of the Department of Community Health’s NEMT manual (version date October 1, 2026) ties a broker’s payment of undisputed invoices, for trips it authorized, to the terms written into each service agreement. When an agreement is silent, the deadline is 15 business days after the broker gets an undisputed invoice. Section 702.7 adds a protection for no-shows: the broker still owes the provider for the trip’s “A” leg if the member never gets on board. The driver has to have arrived on time, and section 903 lets the driver leave once 10 minutes have passed after the pickup time.
• Washington. In the sample broker contract posted by the Health Care Authority (amended through June 30, 2025), brokers must pay transportation providers within 10 calendar days after the state’s monthly payment reaches them. The broker’s own bill to the state is due by the 20th of the following month. So a ride in early March goes on the broker’s April invoice, and the provider’s money follows the state’s payment to the broker.
• Colorado. MediDrive pays for completed, verified, invoiced trips every two weeks. Starting January 1, 2027, all Health First Colorado NEMT payments run through MediDrive, and only providers under contract with it can perform trips and be paid.

A broker that collects from its clients for you

American Logistics works on a different model. Each trip offer shows what the trip pays, along with the pickup city, the mileage, and the type of vehicle needed. The company collects from its clients (insurers, health care facilities, and transit agencies) and then pays providers, so no provider bills those clients directly. Its website posts two summaries of serviced trips, one covering the prior day and one covering the prior week. Your job moves from invoicing to checking each summary against the trips your drivers ran.

What stops or shrinks a payment

Before calling a payment late, rule out the terms that stop the clock or cut the amount.

• Missing the filing window. WellTrans turns away invoices filed after day 90. Modivcare’s Mississippi manual takes 10 percent off after 60 days and pays nothing after 120.
• Returned claims sitting too long. Under the same Modivcare manual, a claim sent back for missing information is paid in full only if it comes back within 30 days. After that it loses 10 percent, and after 60 days it is denied.
• Uncredentialed drivers or vehicles. MTM’s agreement refuses payment for work by drivers, attendants, or vehicles it has not credentialed. WellTrans and Modivcare refuse it for any driver or vehicle they have not registered and approved.
• The broker’s client is behind. WellTrans’s agreement lets it hold payments to providers while its own client is not paying WellTrans.
• Attendance checks. WellTrans pays for a trip only if the rider actually attended covered care. When a facility reports a missed appointment on a trip you billed and WellTrans asks about it in writing, you get 30 days to answer in writing. No answer in that time is treated as proof the trip never happened, and WellTrans takes its cost out of your next payment.
• Medicare-first trips. For WellTrans, Modivcare in Mississippi, and MTM in Virginia, the filing clock starts when Medicare denies the claim. WellTrans and Modivcare also want the denial notice attached to the invoice.
• Offsets. WellTrans can deduct duplicate payments and overpayments from later payments, and MTM’s agreement allows recoupment by offset too.

When a payment is late by the contract, the late payment guide walks through reconciling and escalating.

Building your own payment calendar

Write each broker’s three clocks into one sheet and you can estimate when every deposit is due. An example shows how far apart two brokers in the same state can be. Picture an Indiana company that runs fee-for-service trips through Verida and plan trips through WellTrans in the same week.

1. Verida. A Monday ride filed as a clean claim by that Wednesday is paid within 14 days, so the money lands within about two and a half weeks of the ride.
2. WellTrans. The same ride, filed the same Wednesday, is paid on one of the two monthly payment dates, no later than 30 days after submission. That can be four and a half weeks after the ride.

A Massachusetts provider on MART’s calendar waits longer. Suppose a twice-monthly cycle closes on the 15th. The invoice is due two business days later, and MART finalizes it within six business days of the close. The 45-day clock starts then, so a trip run on the 1st can wait nearly ten weeks for payment at the outside.

The sheet needs five columns per broker: the submission cutoff, the date you submitted, the expected payment date, the actual payment date, and the amount. The gap between expected and actual tells you whether a broker is slow or your claims are coming back. The cash flow guide turns those dates into a 13-week forecast, and the accounts receivable guide covers aging what is still owed.

Watching what each payer owes in HealthRide

HealthRide’s payer summary breaks out, for any period, each payer’s completed trips, cancellations, revenue billed, and balance still owed. The trip log keeps scheduled versus actual times, signatures, and GPS-verified miles on every leg, so a returned claim can be answered from the record. See reports for both.