NW Rides provider guide: Medicaid trips for Columbia Pacific CCO in three Oregon counties

Who runs NW Rides and who it carries

NW Rides arranges Medicaid rides for people enrolled in Columbia Pacific CCO who live in Clatsop, Columbia, or Tillamook county. The Tillamook County Transportation District (TCTD), the county’s public transit agency, runs it as CareOregon’s contracted delegate. CareOregon’s 2024 program review says the brokerage began in July 2018. A transportation company that wants this work sends its paperwork to the brokerage and takes its trips from the brokerage, not from the health plan.

Only Oregon Health Plan members enrolled in Columbia Pacific ride with NW Rides. The Oregon guide names the ride service that covers each of the state’s other plans. CareOregon publishes one provider manual for the three CCOs whose ride programs it manages, Ride to Care in Portland among them, so the driver and vehicle checklist is in the Ride to Care guide and this page does not repeat it.

Columbia Pacific’s recap of 2025 shows 3,053 members using NEMT, who took 81,229 trips covering 1,468,773 miles. That works out to about 18 miles a trip across all ride types.

How much of the work goes to transportation companies

Contracted providers drove about 63 percent of NW Rides’ one-way trips in August 2026, 3,801 of 5,988, and their share is growing. The brokerage report TCTD gave its board on September 16, 2026 compares August with the same month a year earlier.

The same report counts about 16 transportation providers across the three counties, three ambulance providers that serve both metro and regional areas, and 19 active volunteer drivers, most of them in Columbia County. Provider miles rose 47.2 percent over the year, and staff told the board the move toward provider trips continues a pattern already visible in June and July.

Companies share the work with cheaper modes by design. NW Rides tells members it has limited resources, so its screening sends members who can ride transit to bus fare and members who can drive, or find a driver, to mileage money. A vehicle ride goes to members with no vehicle access who cannot use transit. Volunteers are reimbursed at the IRS mileage rate, which TCTD’s board was told rose to $0.76 a mile on July 1, 2026, and members who drive themselves receive $0.49. The volunteer driver guide covers how those programs work.

How a transportation company asks for work

The route in is a phone call to TCTD. The NEMT Brokerage Manager, whose job description names contracted transportation providers and partner organizations as a primary contact, is the person to ask for.

1. Call TCTD. The district office is at 3600 Third Street, Suite A, Tillamook, 503-815-8283. The rider lines, 503-861-0657 and 888-793-0439, are the call center for members.
2. Say what you can cover. CareOregon’s manual says assignments follow the areas and hours you list, your vehicles, the service level a rider needs, your rates, and your record. Offer counties, hours, and vehicles you can staff every day.
3. Expect to hand over credentials first. Under the manual, you give the brokerage copies of your licenses, certifications, and insurance proof before the first ride, and again whenever one renews. This credentialing guide lists what a full file holds.
4. Settle the rate in writing. Under the manual, a negotiated rate is approved only if the brokerage authorized it before the trip, and every trip is billed on the most cost-effective route that is still reasonably direct.
5. Ask about stretcher work. TCTD’s 2024 coordinated plan sets goals to add stretcher service to NW Rides for Medicaid and private-pay riders, to train its own NEMT drivers more formally for stretcher work, and to pay NEMT companies to give seniors and people with disabilities subsidized rides. Ask which of those are underway.

One date to ask about: at its August 19, 2026 meeting, TCTD’s board heard that the contract with CareOregon is up for renewal, a process staff said would be used to review funding levels and operations. The brokerage also hired a new manager in March 2026 and, per the August meeting, a new NEMT coordinator and customer service representative. The guide to closed broker networks covers how to ask when a network looks full.

What CareOregon’s manual leaves to the brokerage

CareOregon wrote its manual as a model for brokerages to adapt, not as a contract, so the agreement you sign with NW Rides sets the details. The manual hands these decisions to each brokerage:

• How fast you must answer an offered trip. Brokerages set the window in which a provider accepts additional or same-day trips or returns them for reassignment.
• Dash cameras. CareOregon urges dash cameras that film both the cabin and the road, and a brokerage may write them into its contract as a requirement.
• How credentials are submitted. Documents go to the brokerage “per the brokerage’s requirements,” with advance notice before payment is held for anything missing.
• How often trips are audited, and how overpayments are repaid. The brokerage sets the audit frequency and the repayment method, which can be a deduction from a later invoice.
• Notice before suspension or termination. The provider contract spells it out.

Rates and insurance limits are set in the agreement too. OAR 410-141-3925 sets the driver and vehicle minimums for every CCO, and the rider’s guide lists the same safety equipment, so the Ride to Care checklist is a fair preview. OAR 410-141-3920(4) also bars a CCO and its transportation providers from billing a member for a covered ride, even if reimbursement for the ride was denied.

What a NW Rides trip request tells you

A trip request carries equipment details, because the brokerage asks riders for them when they book. Expect these on the manifest:

• Wheelchairs. Riders must report a chair over 30 inches wide, over 48 inches long, or over 600 pounds occupied. The guide also asks about width, length, occupied weight, folding, and high-back or reclining frames.
• Stretchers and oxygen. The brokerage asks for height and weight on stretcher rides and for the number of liters on oxygen rides. Equipment it supplies stays with the vehicle and is not left at the destination.
• Attendants and animals. A personal care attendant rides free. Children 12 and under need an adult attendant, and drivers do not install car seats.
• Pickup details. Riders are asked about stairs, gates, and the level of help the driver gives, such as curb to curb or hand to hand.

Timing rules come from the rider’s guide and the program’s web page. Each rider is given a pickup window of 30 minutes and is told to be ready 15 minutes before the scheduled time. Drivers should be no later than 15 minutes past the scheduled time or window. A member who sees no driver after 10 minutes is told to call, and the trip may move to another provider. A will-call return is due within an hour after the member calls, and a cancellation needs two hours’ notice. A rider who is not ready by the 15-minute mark after the scheduled pickup, or who cancels late, is recorded as a no-show.

Rider behavior changes how trips are handled. Under OAR 410-141-3955, as amended effective July 1, 2026, the CCO can modify a member’s service for threats, frequent no-shows, frequent same-day cancellations, or chronic lateness, defined as being more than 15 minutes late after the driver arrives for 25 percent or more of trips in three months. The brokerage notifies the member, and providers carry out whatever modification it sets. The manual says providers are not held accountable for member no-shows.

Weather changes the schedule. When conditions are unsafe or capacity is limited, NW Rides focuses on critical medical care such as dialysis and chemotherapy infusions, and trips to routine appointments may be cancelled.

Secure transport is a separate lane. The manual limits it to providers licensed and trained under OAR 309-033, and the guide says NW Rides allows medical secure transports ordered by a court. The behavioral health transportation guide covers the crew side.

Members outside Columbia Pacific ride with NW MedLink

OHA’s brokerage map sends every Oregon Health Plan member in these three counties who is not in Columbia Pacific to NW MedLink, 833-585-4221, and the 2026 open card handbook lists the same number. Those members are on open card, OHA’s fee-for-service coverage, and OHA’s open card brokerage rules in OAR chapter 410, division 136 differ from the CCO rules above. The Oregon rates guide covers brokerage pay and the OHA fee schedule.

The map carries a July 1, 2023 effective date. OHA’s August 2026 notice says every Healthier Oregon member moves to open card in January 2027, which means Columbia Pacific enrollees in that program would then book with NW MedLink, the open card ride service for these counties, instead of NW Rides. The notice gives no county counts.

Contacts

• TCTD district office (main line): 3600 Third Street, Suite A, Tillamook, 503-815-8283. Ask for the NEMT Brokerage Manager.
• NW Rides call center (members): 503-861-0657 or toll-free 888-793-0439, relay 711. Open weekdays from 8 to 5, except six holidays: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. On alternate Wednesdays it opens at 9.
• Columbia Pacific CCO customer service: 855-722-8206.
• NW MedLink (open card members): 833-585-4221.

Keeping NW Rides windows and waits on the board

NW Rides trips come with 30-minute windows, return rides due within an hour of a call, and a wait rule that decides whether a rider counts as a no-show. HealthRide’s dispatch board lets you assign a trip in one motion, and a will-call return keeps its place on the board and goes live when the passenger is ready. The recorded wait time on a no-show shows how long your driver stayed, and GPS-recorded miles and timestamps back up the trip log you send the brokerage.