New York Medicaid transportation fee schedule: ambulette, taxi, and livery rates by region

How New York sets transportation rates

New York pays Medicaid transportation from a single statewide spreadsheet that lists a rate for every county, service category, code, and modifier. The copy on eMedNY is dated April 5, 2026. It covers ambulance, ambulette, and taxi, livery, and van service in all 57 counties outside the city, plus New York City as one row set, and separate rows for trips authorized under the Office of Mental Health and the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities.

Three things shape what you actually receive:

• The broker authorizes every non-emergency trip. Medical Answering Services (MAS) is the Department of Health’s transportation broker for the whole state. It took over all counties except Nassau and Suffolk on August 1, 2023, and those two on December 1, 2023.
• Negotiated rates win. The policy manual says MAS negotiates reimbursement directly with network providers and that those rates supersede the fee schedule. The header of the spreadsheet adds a warning of its own: the amounts are the ones used in the broker’s fee-for-service program, and some reflect deals struck with particular networks.
• Enrollment is not a contract. Enrolling in Medicaid does not put you in the MAS network. You sign a service agreement with MAS to receive trips, and MAS decides how much work goes to each vendor.

So read the schedule as the county baseline. Your service agreement with Medical Answering Services sets your pay.

Reading the spreadsheet

Each row has six columns: county, category of service, procedure code, modifier, fee, and effective date. A few habits make it easier to use.

1. Filter to your county first. Rates differ sharply by county, and a neighboring county’s number means little for your trips.
2. Start with the rows that have no modifier. A dash in the modifier column means no modifier applies, and that row is the county’s standard rate for the code.
3. Treat modifier rows as special cases. The same code appears with modifiers such as HE, TN, SC, or HB at very different amounts. The header cautions that a modifier here may not mean what it has meant historically, so bill a modifier only when the prior authorization carries it. Claim details must match the authorization.
4. Check the effective date. Row dates run from 2011 to 2026. Most county ambulette base rates changed in 2024, while New York City’s ambulette mileage and most taxi base rows date from 2022. The date on a row tells you when that rate last changed.
5. Round with care. A few taxi rows carry long decimals, such as $7.359 in Erie County. The tables below round to the cent.

The same codes show up statewide. A0130 is an ambulette (wheelchair van) trip, S0209 is ambulette mileage, T2005 is a stretcher trip, T2049 is stretcher mileage, A0100 is a taxi trip, and S0215 is taxi or livery mileage. The NEMT billing codes guide defines each one.

Ambulette and stretcher rates by county

The table shows base rows, those with no modifier, for a spread of downstate, upstate, and North Country counties.

Every ambulette trip rate in this table took effect between May and September 2024, and so did every ambulette mileage rate except New York City’s $3.60, which dates from April 1, 2022. The New York City stretcher rate of $230.00 took effect May 20, 2024, and the $101.00 stretcher rate in Albany, Erie, and Monroe dates from April 1, 2023. “Not listed” means the county has no base mileage row for stretcher trips.

The spread is wide. A stretcher trip pays $101.00 in Albany, Erie, and Monroe but $280.00 in Onondaga. The two North Country counties pay more per ambulette mile than New York City does.

Taxi and livery rates

Taxi and livery trips pay a small base plus mileage, except in New York City, where the base is higher.

Livery is its own category of service (0605), limited to New York City and requiring Taxi and Limousine Commission licensing. Taxi and livery service is curb to curb, so the driver does not owe the door-through-door help an ambulette does. An ambulette company may also run taxi-level trips. It needs no taxi or livery license of its own for that work, and it bills those trips with taxi-level codes. The livery vehicle entry covers the licensing side.

What an ambulette rate already includes

The ambulette rate buys a lot of labor, and the manual is specific about it.

• Door to door, whatever the stairs. The crew collects the rider at their own door, whether that is a house, an upstairs apartment, or a nursing home room, and brings them to the practitioner’s door. The number of flights makes no difference.
• Personal assistance. Help walking, on stairs and curbs, with doors, and getting into the vehicle is required on every trip.
• Escorts. An escort from the ambulette company is paid by the base rate, not a separate line.
• Stretcher crews. Every stretcher trip needs two employees at minimum, a wheeled cot, the cot maker’s own restraint straps, and a retention device built by the same maker. The crew may not administer oxygen and the vehicle may not stock it, but a rider who manages their own oxygen can travel.

The limits run the other way too. Lifting the rider onto an exam table, staying through the visit to report back to caregivers, and leaving a stretcher at the clinic are not the driver’s job. Field reviews by the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General (OMIG) found many ambulette services not giving the required personal assistance, and an audit that finds the same can bring financial sanctions, so schedule enough time for it.

Mileage rules

New York pays only loaded miles, the miles with a Medicaid rider in the vehicle.

• One decimal place. Since August 1, 2019, mileage units carry tenths. A rounded-up claim can be treated as fraud. A provider that cannot report tenths may round down until the Department says otherwise.
• Shared rides. With two or more Medicaid riders aboard at once, claim only the distance between the first pickup and the final drop-off. Each rider’s claim still gets the base fee.
• Flat-fee trips are different. The shared-ride rule does not apply to providers paid a flat pickup fee with no mileage.
• Tolls. A toll is charged per vehicle, so bill one unit per crossing no matter how many riders are aboard. E-ZPass holders bill the amount actually charged, and a provider paying tolls by mail is reimbursed only at the E-ZPass rate.
• Household members. Two people who live at the same address and go to the same destination get one authorized trip with an added rider, not two paid trips. Separate apartments in one building, adult homes, and nursing facilities are not treated this way.

Here is how the shared-ride rule works in a hypothetical: two riders go to the same clinic, the first living 11.2 miles away and the second 5.0 miles away on the same route. The first rider’s claim carries the base fee and 11.2 miles. The second rider’s claim carries only the base fee, because those 5.0 miles were already driven with the first rider on board.

Prior authorization and the MAS roster

Non-emergency trips generally need prior authorization before they run. The exceptions are emergency ambulance trips and Medicare-approved ambulance trips for riders who also have Medicare Part B. The rider, their representative, or the ordering practitioner makes the request to MAS. A transportation provider may not request its own prior authorization.

Under 18 NYCRR 505.10(d)(8), an ambulette request must be backed by the ordering practitioner’s written order, along with the state’s form verifying the rider’s transportation abilities. After the trip, you attest in the broker’s system that it happened. Attestation is what releases the 11-digit prior authorization number that appears on your roster and goes on the claim. Timing rules matter:

• Attestation window. Attest each trip within 30 days after it runs. Later attestations can lose payment.
• Retroactive eligibility. If Medicaid coverage is approved after the trip, attest within 120 days of the day it shows in the eligibility system.
• Corrections. MAS can change an existing authorization within 90 days of the trip. After 90 days, the change is possible only within 30 days of when the authorization was issued, and those requests go to the Department of Health by eFax or email.

Claim fields that trip up transportation providers

New York’s claim asks for details other states do not. The billing guidelines, version 2026-02 dated August 5, 2026, spell them out.

Each date of service gets its own claim line. A rider taken round trip on three days needs three lines, each with two units. Edit 7-0 denies any claim that bills more units in a day than the authorization covers.

Filing deadlines and records

Under 18 NYCRR 540.6, a first claim must go in within 90 days of the trip. Corrected claims get 60 days from notice, claims delayed by something outside your control get 30 days from when it clears, and nothing is paid after two years except in narrow cases. The timely filing limit entry compares New York with other states.

Trip records must be kept six years. Since March 1, 2016, each trip record has to answer four questions: who rode (name and Medicaid ID), when (the date plus pickup and drop-off times), where (both addresses), and who drove what (plate number and driver’s license number). The driver also prints and signs their name to confirm the trip was completed. An electronic signature and a completion tap that captures both pickup and drop-off coordinates meet the rule if the system stamps each leg with a date and time that cannot be edited. Since April 3, 2023, every trip must also be fully GPS compliant, which means the broker receives the trip’s starting coordinates, ending coordinates, and every GPS point recorded in between.

Recent changes to watch

The schedule moves one county at a time, so check your rows whenever eMedNY posts a new copy.

• April 5, 2026 schedule: The spreadsheet notes that adult day health care rows were removed, T2005 was updated, and A0170 rows with the HA, HB, and HC modifiers were dropped.
• April 1, 2026: MAS began managing transportation for Fidelis Care members in Rockland County.
• February 9, 2026: Sullivan County ambulette rates were set at $44.00 per trip and $4.00 a mile, and Ulster County ambulette mileage at $4.00.
• June 23, 2025: Hamilton County ambulette rates were set at $45.00 per trip and $3.50 a mile.

Managed care changes little here. Mainstream managed care transportation moved to the state broker on December 1, 2015, and for any plan that still covers rides, you bill the plan. CMS guidance also asks states that use a broker to watch that its provider pay never drops so far that local fleets stop participating. The New York state guide covers enrollment and licensing.

Where HealthRide fits

A New York claim leans on details from each leg: when the rider was picked up and dropped off, the vehicle, the driver, and the loaded miles. HealthRide’s driver app timestamps every pickup and drop-off and keeps GPS-recorded miles, and riders sign on the driver’s screen. Export the trip log to CSV or PDF whenever MAS or an auditor asks for it.