Your state is switching NEMT brokers: a provider plan for the changeover

A broker change resets the rules you work under. The rides and riders stay the same, but the contract, the credentialing file, the portal, the rates, and the payment calendar all change on one date. Treat the go-live date as a hard deadline, not a day to react to, and plan the work backward from it.

How a broker change unfolds

Most changes follow the same stages, whether a state is buying a new broker or a health plan is swapping transportation vendors. Federal rules at 42 CFR 440.170(a)(4) require a state to choose its brokers through competitive bidding, so state changes start with a procurement. Health plans set their own schedules.

A protest or a slow procurement can move every later date, so build your plan on the dates the state or plan actually publishes, and check them monthly.

Recent and upcoming broker changes

States and health plans have announced these changes for 2026 and early 2027.

Our guide to NEMT delivery models explains why some changes are statewide and others affect only one health plan’s members.

What resets with a new broker

Assume everything tied to the broker changes, even if you have run the same riders for years.

• Your contract. You sign a fresh agreement with the incoming broker. Nothing carries over automatically.
• Your credentialing file. Company, driver, and vehicle documents go through the new broker’s review. Colorado listed what MediDrive wants for each driver: 10-panel drug screening and a federal criminal background check no older than 30 days, a license, third-party defensive driving training, an FBI fingerprint check, first aid and CPR, a motor vehicle record covering the current year plus two, OIG and SAM exclusion screening, passenger assistance training, and wheelchair securement training for wheelchair providers. Vehicles need an ASE inspection (any age for wheelchair vans, five years or older for ambulatory), registration, a broker safety inspection, and insurance.
• Your insurance certificates. MTM Health requires Virginia providers to name it on their policies as additional insured and as certificate holder, and to carry workers’ compensation that satisfies Virginia requirements.
• Your equipment. Colorado makes providers buy their own tablets and recording cameras (video and audio) compatible with MediDrive’s systems. MediDrive supplies only the software.
• Your rates. MTM Health negotiates Virginia rates provider by provider. Compare the offered rates with your costs before signing.
• Your billing route. In Colorado, providers outside the Denver metro who bill Medicaid directly become “Performer Only” at statewide go-live. They can bill the state for trips before that date, and every trip after it is billed only through MediDrive. In Montana, enrollment and billing move from the state’s contractors to Modivcare.
• Your daily rules. Turnback deadlines, filing windows, and scorecard targets differ by broker. See broker trip offers for how much they vary.

The rider’s benefit does not change. Colorado and Wisconsin both say the switch changes how rides are arranged, not what members are eligible for.

Get into the new network before go-live

Start the week the new broker opens contracting. Late providers lose trips, not just time.

1. Find the new broker’s provider application. Colorado sent providers to MediDrive’s online contracting application. MTM Health runs Virginia providers through application, credentialing, and contracting phases with a designated representative.
2. Use your exact legal identity. Colorado had metro providers sign with MediDrive using the identical business name and NPI or Medicaid ID on file with the old broker, so the state could move their records across.
3. Build the document packet early. Screens dated within 30 days expire fast, so time drug tests and background checks close to submission. The usual document list is in our guide to NEMT broker credentialing and the matching checklist.
4. Keep the old file current. Colorado required metro providers to keep driver and vehicle rosters current in the old broker’s credentialing system throughout the transition. A lapse there can stop your trips before the new broker starts.
5. Get your technology connected. Colorado’s checklist for the statewide switch includes integrating an approved transportation management system. Test trip receipt and trip completion before go-live day.
6. Keep Medicaid enrollment and the broker contract straight. They are separate steps. In Colorado, a new company enrolls with the state Medicaid agency first and contracts with MediDrive only after that approval. The state’s schedule lets new companies start enrolling on October 1, 2026.

The cost of missing the date is concrete. Under Colorado’s memo, a provider who has not finished contracting with MediDrive by go-live stays in the Medicaid network but receives no trips and cannot bill directly for any trip performed on or after that date.

Whether the new broker must take every qualified provider depends on the program. Colorado says any qualified provider may contract with MediDrive, with no limit on how many. MediTrans in Louisiana weighs how crowded a region already is and which vehicle types it still needs.

Move your standing orders with you

Standing orders are steady repeat work, and a switch is when they quietly slip away. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas told its network providers that MTM Health would take over recurring rides and rides already booked for dates after October 1, with no action needed from members. Colorado said MediDrive would make every effort to move rides already scheduled with the old broker, and told members to call and confirm their rides had transferred. State contracts push the same way: Rhode Island’s requires an outgoing broker to hand its trip and member data to the state or the next broker.

None of that says the same provider keeps the ride. MTM Health’s Virginia handbook assigns a standing order automatically only when it is pre-set with a designated provider. So:

1. Export every standing order you run for the affected program: rider, days, times, facility, and level of service.
2. A few weeks before go-live, ask the new broker to confirm each one and to record your company as the designated provider where its rules allow.
3. On go-live day, check that each ride has the new broker’s trip ID. MTM Health does not guarantee payment for any trip run without its unique trip ID, so never run a carried-over ride on the old number.

Our guide to NEMT standing orders covers keeping them accurate after the switch.

Getting paid on both sides of the cutover

The go-live date splits your trips into two billing worlds. Treat each side as its own project.

Trips before go-live bill to the outgoing broker, or to the state, under the old rules. Filing windows can be short: 90 days under the MTM Health agreement Pennsylvania posts, 60 days under WellTrans’s agreement (with invoices after 90 days refused), and six months under MTM Health’s Virginia handbook. Submit everything in the first weeks after the cutover, while staff still remember the old portal.

Expect the last payments to take longer. That same MTM Health agreement lets MTM end a provider agreement at once when its own client contract is terminated. Once termination notice is given, MTM can hold back money on open claims until its audit is done, and it can offset liquidated damages against what it owes. States keep a hold on outgoing brokers too. Rhode Island’s contract requires its broker to keep performing until the state approves the turnover, and the state holds back 75% of the broker’s final monthly payment for up to 180 days.

Trips after go-live bill to the new broker on its calendar. MediDrive pays Colorado providers every two weeks for completed and verified invoiced trips. The first payment arrives only after your first trips are verified, so there is a gap.

Plan the cash for that gap. Here is an illustrative case: a fleet that earns $30,000 a month from the affected program, paid 30 days after submission by the old broker. In the first month after go-live, the old broker’s final payments may slow down for audit while the new broker’s first payment is still weeks away. A reserve equal to one month of operating costs, or a line of credit arranged in advance, covers it. See NEMT cash flow for building the reserve, and late broker payments for reconciling the old broker’s final checks.

Give riders and facilities the new numbers

Riders and facilities need the new numbers before go-live, not after.

• Montana kept the member reservation line, (800) 292-7114, and added a transportation provider line, (866) 726-1471, and a facility line, (866) 726-1469, all live from the soft go-live on September 1, 2026.
• Colorado had members in the nine metro counties start booking with MediDrive on June 15, 2026, for any appointment from July 1 on.
• Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas told providers it would send members letters explaining how to book with MTM Health.

Give each dialysis center, clinic, and facility you serve the new broker’s booking and facility numbers the week before go-live, so their staff book your riders through the right channel.

Keeping trips flowing through a broker change with HealthRide

Trips from MTM, Alivi and Sentry reach your HealthRide board by themselves, because HealthRide connects with those brokers, which helps when a program moves to one of them. Recurring trips keep your standing orders scheduled in one place while you confirm each one with the new broker. The payer summary shows what each payer still owes, which makes closing out the old broker’s final payments easier. See how broker connections work.