NEMT dispatcher performance metrics: schedule quality, avoidable late trips, and call handling

Measure the office separately from the road

Dispatch metrics show whether the office gave drivers a day they could actually run, and whether it reacted fast when the day changed. The driver performance metrics guide scores the people behind the wheel. The NEMT KPIs guide covers company-wide service and money numbers. This page covers the layer in between, the decisions made at the desk before and during the day.

O*NET’s task list for dispatchers starts with sending vehicles to customer requests and drawing up daily run schedules, and it goes on to tracking where vehicles are and keeping files on requests and completed work. Each of those leaves a trail you can count.

Brokers already score several office results, even if they file them under the company’s name. MTM Health’s Virginia handbook (approved August 10, 2026) holds providers to these standards, and each traces back to a desk decision:

The handbook also sets on-time performance above 95%, which the office and the road share. An MTM field monitor goes over these numbers with each provider at regular reviews. A provider that misses them can be put on a performance improvement plan, charged liquidated damages under its service agreement, or removed from MTM’s network.

Schedule quality: whether the day could be driven

A schedule that cannot be driven turns into late trips no matter who is behind the wheel. Check the plan before the day starts, with five measures:

• Planned legs per driver hour. Scheduled legs ÷ scheduled driver hours, taken from the plan as built the day before. Put it next to the completed legs per driver hour from the same day. A plan that runs well above what drivers complete was overbooked from the start.
• Tight-gap rate. The share of back-to-back legs on a run where the planned gap is shorter than the drive time plus the loading time the rider’s level of service needs. MTM’s Virginia handbook bars trading safety for the schedule, so a gap that only works at speed is a schedule error, not a driver problem.
• Vehicle-fit errors. Legs placed on a vehicle that cannot carry the rider’s mobility device or level of service, counted separately for those caught before dispatch and those found at the curb. Under the same handbook, changing the assigned mode without approval can mean no payment.
• Standing-order continuity. The share of recurring legs run by the rider’s usual driver. Under MTM’s Virginia handbook, providers should keep the same driver on standing orders when they reasonably can and note each time someone else covers.
• Next-day finish time. The time each day’s schedule for tomorrow is complete. Both example broker manuals require 24 hours’ notice to return a trip, so a schedule finished after the earliest pickups’ deadline leaves you no clean way to return a trip you cannot cover.

Trace every late trip to one cause

On-time performance blends the office and the road into one number, so split it. Give every late leg exactly one cause code from four groups:

• Schedule. A gap too short to drive, the wrong service time for the facility, the wrong vehicle, or a trip assigned or reassigned too late.
• Communication. The delay was known, but the rider, facility, or broker was not told in time.
• Road. A crash or backup, a breakdown, weather, or a detour.
• Rider or facility. The rider was not ready, the discharge ran late, or the facility held the rider.

The avoidable-late rate counts the first two groups:

Avoidable-late rate = late legs coded schedule or communication ÷ completed legs × 100

A worked example, with hypothetical numbers for one week:

• 600 completed legs, 54 of them late, so on-time performance is 91%.
• Causes: 21 schedule, 6 communication, 19 road, 8 rider or facility.
• Avoidable-late rate: 27 ÷ 600 = 4.5%.
• If the office had prevented every avoidable late leg, on-time performance would have been 95.5%, above MTM’s Virginia standard.

That last line is the reason to track it. In this example the office, not the drivers, held the key to the broker standard. For counting the pickup window itself, see the on-time performance guide.

Response speed: will-calls, delays, and trip offers

Speed metrics measure the time between something changing and the office acting on it. Five are worth tracking:

1. Will-call response. Driver arrival time minus the time the rider’s ready call came in. MTM’s Virginia handbook and Modivcare’s Mississippi manual both set 45 minutes. Split it into call-to-assignment, which belongs to the office, and assignment-to-arrival, which belongs to the road. If the desk takes 20 minutes to assign, the driver has 25 left for the drive.
2. Reassignment time. Minutes from the moment the office learns a driver will miss a pickup to the moment another driver is assigned or the broker is told the trip is in trouble.
3. Delay warning rate. The share of pickups running 15 or more minutes late where the rider heard from you before the driver arrived. Modivcare’s manual requires a call to waiting riders once a delay reaches 15 minutes. MTM’s Virginia handbook requires calls to affected riders or facilities and a notice to the broker.
4. Discharge response. MTM’s Virginia handbook allows three hours from the ready call, with liquidated damages for missing it. Modivcare uses the time the provider agreed to, and expects an immediate call for reassignment when the provider cannot make it.
5. Trip offer response. Hours from a broker offering a trip to your office accepting or declining it. Under MTM’s Virginia handbook, trips go to eligible providers seven days before the appointment, every available trip in a service area opens in the marketplace five days out, and MTM’s dispatchers start calling providers about pending offers four to five days out. An offer that sits until one of those calls was answered slowly.

Keeping capacity free for will-calls is what holds the first number inside the limit. The will-call guide shows how.

Call handling: answer, abandon, call back

The phone is where most changes reach the office, so measure it like a small call center. Pull three numbers from your phone system each week:

• Answer rate. Calls answered live within 60 seconds ÷ calls offered × 100.
• Abandonment rate. Calls dropped by the caller before anyone picked up ÷ calls offered × 100.
• Callback time. The median minutes from a voicemail to a return call.

No rule sets these for transportation companies, but state broker contracts offer a reference. Maine requires its NEMT brokers to answer 90% of calls within 60 seconds and keep abandoned calls at or under 5%. In the second quarter of 2026, the three brokers averaged 92.83% answered within 60 seconds and 4.43% abandoned, and one ran 84.40% answered with 5.60% abandoned. Those are large call centers, so treat their standard as a target for your own office rather than a floor. Read your numbers next to the desk’s workload. The dispatcher hiring guide shows how to count legs per dispatcher hour, which tells you whether a falling answer rate is a staffing problem or a habit.

Split out the driver line. Modivcare’s Mississippi manual requires that the broker be able to reach a supervisor at the provider whenever its vehicles carry members, and a driver at a no-show must reach the broker for authorization before leaving. A driver call that rings out during service hours holds up a van and a rider, so count driver calls answered live as their own measure.

Booking errors and close-out gaps

Every booking error costs less the earlier someone finds it. Track the intake error rate and where each error was caught:

Intake error rate = trips corrected after booking ÷ trips booked × 100

Record the catch point for each correction: at the booking read-back, at the day-before review, on the day of the trip, or after the trip during billing. Then group the errors by type: level of service, pickup or drop-off address, appointment time, a missing return trip, and a wrong rider ID or trip number.

The late catches cost money. MTM’s Virginia scorecard holds claims with missing or incorrect information under 0.99% and denied claims under 0.29%, and Modivcare does not pay for a trip without a valid job number. A level-of-service error found the night before is one call to the broker. Modivcare’s manual asks providers to call immediately when they believe the wrong level was ordered. The same error found at the curb is a failed pickup. Most of these errors are prevented by the questions in the trip intake guide.

Close-out gaps deserve their own count, because closing a leg out is desk work:

Close-out completeness = legs closed the same day with every required field ÷ completed legs × 100

Use each broker’s own list of required fields. MTM’s Virginia handbook wants six data points on every electronic trip log (trip ID, scheduled pickup, actual pickup, departure, arrival, and the member’s signature), plus a completed trip status, and a claim short of any of them is denied. A leg that is still missing a field at the end of the day is a denial waiting to happen.

A weekly review without blame

The numbers are only useful if the review changes how the office works. Run it the same way every week:

1. Pull last week’s late, missed, and returned legs with their cause codes and the speed measures above.
2. Sort them by cause, not by dispatcher.
3. For each schedule or communication item, ask what the dispatcher knew at that moment and which rule, setting, or habit led to the decision.
4. Change one thing per week, such as a facility’s service time or a buffer for a bridge at rush hour, and write it into your dispatch procedures.
5. Check the next week whether the same cause came back.

Keep the meeting about decisions and information, not names. A dispatcher who expects to be blamed will start coding late trips as traffic, and the numbers stop meaning anything. The dispatcher checklist is a good place to record each rule the review produces.

Pulling dispatch numbers from HealthRide

HealthRide tracks on-time performance automatically on every leg, overall and per driver, and its reports export the trip log as CSV or PDF for cause coding. A late pickup is flagged at once on the live map, the fleet list, and the board, so nobody has to go looking for it. Recorded wait times on no-shows give the weekly review the facts behind each failed pickup.