Bruce Japsen Senior
Contributor
Aug 14, 2019, 7:30 am
Uber has signed a contract with a key medical
transportation company that has relationships with some of the nation’s biggest
health insurers.
Uber Health, the healthcare business of the
ride-sharing giant, said it is partnering with American
Logistics Company in “the rideshare company’s first national
collaboration with a healthcare transportation management company.” Financial
terms of the partnership weren’t disclosed.
Uber’s partnership with American Logistics
offers another glimpse into the expanding and lucrative opportunities for ride
sharing companies including rival Lyft as well as other startups and new
entrants like Ford Motor Company’s GoRide Health invest into expansion for
non-emergency medical transportation services.
“The combination of Uber’s vast driver-partner
network and American Logistics’ full-service, turnkey transportation solution
delivers an unmatched level of access to millions of healthcare plan members,” Uber Health said in a statement. “Healthcare
plans and organizations can now provide smarter patient pickup and drop off,
scheduling, real-time GPS tracking, and messaging through one unified
platform.”
To be sure, American Logistics contracts with
Caremore, a unit of Anthem, the nation’s second-largest health insurance
company with more than 40 million health plan members.
Anthem’s CareMore contracts with American
Logistics to provide patients with transportation to their doctor’s offices and
other medical appointments, which is a goal of health insurers to try to make
sure their health plan enrollees are getting primary care upfront before they
get sick and end up in a more expensive care setting like a hospital.
As health insurers like Anthem move away from
fee-for-service medicine to value-based care and population health models that
make sure patients are getting quality care in the right place and at the right
time, ride-sharing companies say they can have a key role.
CareMore is an integrated delivery system that
provides care to about 150,000 patients enrolled in Caremore or Anthem Medicare
Advantage plans as well as Medicaid health plan subscribers depending on the
state.
Medicaid patients suffer multiple chronic
conditions and are known to have difficulty accessing medical care services so
insurers and Medicaid programs see ride-share as a potential solution to making
sure they get to their doctor’s appointments. And seniors are flocking to
Medicare Advantage plans, which are increasingly covering more supplement
health benefits thanks to rule changes by the Centers for Medicare &
Medicaid Services.
“Transportation touches many aspects of a
person’s life and reliable transportation is fundamental to healthy
communities,” Dan Trigub, head of Uber Health said. “As we find more ways for
Uber to help Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, partnerships with
organizations like American Logistics are critical to our success. Uber Health
along with American Logistics will reduce barriers to care for our most
vulnerable populations, including the elderly and low-income patients.”
Trigub said American Logistics’ integration
with Uber’s application programming interface (API) “creates a
single-platform solution that, coupled with our dedicated team of healthcare
professionals, will drive significant value.”
For Uber, the American Logistics partnership
shows a commitment to the healthcare space, Uber executives said. Landing more
deals with health insurance companies and medical providers could also be a
boon to Uber as the ride-sharing company is trying
to boost sales and become profitable.
“Our Uber Health platform that helps improve
access to healthcare organizations grew at over 400% year-on-year this
quarter,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told
analysts last week during the company’s second-quarter earnings call.
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