How to Become an NEMT Broker?

What is an NEMT Broker?

NEMT brokers are the head and heart of the whole healthcare continuum. This is the central hub that controls all NEMT trips, gives jobs to NEMT companies so they can earn more, and assists patients in need to get to their medical appointments, urgent care, pharmacy drug pick-ups or directly to the hospital. Brokers in this business need to juggle schedules, know the healthcare system in and out, ensure that their NEMT providers are licensed and that patients are eligible for such services. All of these tasks are frequently managed with an NEMT broker software. But first things first, let’s take a look at what NEMT brokers do, how to become one, and what tips can increase competitiveness in the market.

What Do NEMT Brokers Do?

The brokers in the industry work to ensure patients get to their appointments, hospital visits, etc. This is reached by close cooperation with NEMT providers, insurance agencies (both private and state agencies), and the actual patients.

1. A patient or a state agency calls a broker to request non-emergency medical transportation service.
2. The broker contacts the transportation provider and secures transportation for the patient.

This is a simplified two-step model of an NEMT broker’s responsibilities. However, the business is a bit more complicated today. A professional broker needs to ensure that the patient has healthcare coverage and hence is eligible for the services, and that the NEMT provider is licensed and credentialed for such services. Besides that, with the help of non-emergency medical transportation software they also need to follow every trip to ensure that the patient is picked up and delivered to the right place and that the payments are conducted appropriately.

How to Become an NEMT Broker?

Apart from an NEMT broker, there are three more personas who participate in the NEMT brokerage scheme; health plan agencies, NEMT providers, and patients. So the first and foremost step in becoming an NEMT broker is to set relationships with all these personas. What this means is:

Contact local, state, and federal agencies and discuss the possibility of getting requests for NEMT orders directly from them. You can also contact local hospitals and private practice doctors to start small. By contacting these agencies and doctors, you will be able to set up the primary route for getting patients and hence begin the business.

Discuss with the local NEMT experts (providers) how you can get them to deliver your patients. Ensure that you discuss not only the terms of how you transfer a patient to them but also inquire about the NEMT cloud dispatching software they are using to facilitate cooperation and management of the orders.

There is an option of knocking on the doors of potential clients to directly offer your services, however, it is much more effective, in terms of connection and budget savings, to advertise your service in the community via printed ads, leaflets, and social media pages.

Once you have set up initial relationships, get down to building a database of all those contacts. Ensure that you collect all contact information, terms of cooperation, any papers that need to be signed, etc. For the individual patients, keep track of the times of their appointments, housing information, healthcare plans, and destinations required.

After you have collected the right amount of data, it’s time to select the right NEMT dispatch and billing software for your business. At this point, recollect on the software used by the drivers and NEMT providers and try to select the most common or open solution (in terms of integration with other platforms). NEMT management software allows keeping track of all requests, routes, and statuses of both; modern solutions also show all possible information about every patient, driver, payment history, etc. This means that the management of the whole brokerage business becomes easy and clear for you because the software does all the dispatching, tracking, and calculations within seconds.

How to Become a Great NEMT Broker in Demand?

The rule is simple – you need to become the best in the area to win the most hospitals, doctors, insurance agencies, and individual patients. Once you reach the Olympus, you will need to hold the position. So here are two important tips to stay on top of the industry:

Keep track of credentialing. Every driver that is offered by the NEMT providers needs to have proper papers, such as a driver’s license and license to provide NEMT services (preferably some identification that they are first-aid trained). Make sure that you put all this data into your NEMT dispatch software so that the solution calculates when any license expires or if a driver has any negative client-relation history.

The same process is essential for patients. Some of them will come from the state and federal insurance programs and will need to prove their eligibility for NEMT services. Let the software notify you whenever the patient’s plan has expired and they need to pay for the service privately. In this simple way, you will be able to avoid a lot of grievance disputes.

Conduct regular analyses and reviews. Try to conduct an overview and analysis of your brokerage business at least once every quarter. In this way, you will be aware of the most common issues your business suffers from (some drivers are frequently late, some patients cancel rides, there are late insurance payments, customers are not satisfied with the comfort of the vehicles, your fleet is too small, etc.). Such quality and efficiency monitoring will help you in improving your business on a regular basis, and get ahead of the competition. Most instances of transportation dispatch software today offer extensive business reports and basic analytics of the business performance so you only need to monitor that data.

The success of an NEMT brokerage company completely depends on the management and analytical skills of its CEO. Make sure that you monitor all the processes happening inside of the business to analyze them every once in a while and improve on company’s underperformance immediately. Do not hesitate to implement an NEMT software into your day-to-day operations since this facilitates business management and can boost your turnover of new orders. If you are a novice in the business, do not stumble, contact iSi Technology for a consultation about the best NEMT software available. Our experts will help you identify your key requirements and develop a comprehensive NEMT solution for your business.

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