The Lyft partnership with CommonSpirit Health will close care access gaps while creating a seamless patient experience.
A new partnership between CommonSpirit Health, non-emergency medical transportation broker LogistiCare Circulation, and rideshare provider Lyft aims to drive patient care access and address the social determinants of health, the trio announced in a press release.
Using broker services from LogistiCare Circulation, CommonSpirit providers will be able to coordinate a Lyft ride for individuals in need of non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT).
As of 2017, limited access to medical transportation was the leading reason for patient no-shows and missed appointments, according to data from the American Hospital Association (AHA).
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All said, nearly 3.6 million individuals did not access care in 2017 because they did not have a ride to the hospital or clinic, with nearly 4 percent of children missing their medical appointments because they didn’t have a ride to the doctor, AHA reported.
Rideshare companies quickly moved to fill this void as they emerged on the tech and transportation marketplaces. Data confirms that hospitals that foot the bill for rideshares see cost savings because patients follow-up with care and engage in chronic disease management, preventing expensive acute episodes.
This latest partnership between CommonSpirit, Lyft, and LogistiCare Circulation aims to follow that trend, working to close health disparities caused by the social determinants of health.
“With Lyft’s proven technology, broad geographic footprint, and passion to help promote health equity among CommonSpirit’s varied populations, we can achieve our shared goal to address the social determinants of health by removing transportation barriers that affect people’s ability to receive care,” said Christine Bracato, the system vice president for strategic innovation at CommonSpirit Health.
This move is also a part of CommonSpirit’s efforts to create a positive patient experience. Caseworkers or care managers can call a Lyft for a patient upon hospital discharge and track the ride to ensure the patient arrives at the right location.
“When our patients aren’t feeling well, the entirety of their interaction with our system – from their provider visit to discharge to their door – affects their experience,” Brocato added. “By giving our caregivers access to LogistiCare’s ride-ordering platform, we can help our patients get rides within minutes and help give staff the peace of mind that their patient is getting a reliable ride so they can continue to devote their time to providing compassionate care.”
LogistiCare Circulation will play the role of NEMT broker, serving as a platform on which CommonSpirit providers can plan Lyft rides for patients.
“With CommonSpirit Health and Lyft, we share a mutual understanding of the impact reliable transportation has in fundamentally improving lives,” said Dan Greenleaf, LogistiCare Circulation CEO. “We have been dedicated to empowering patients with better access to health care for decades and are honored to partner with CommonSpirit and Lyft.”
This all comes as a part of Lyft’s role in the medical space. The rideshare behemoth has been edging closer into the medical field over the course of the past four years, first building partnerships like this that serve individual health systems and patient populations.
“Reliable transportation is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to making sure everyone has access to comprehensive health care, and is core to the work we’re doing here at Lyft,” explained Megan Callahan, VP of Healthcare at Lyft. “We’ve been impressed by CommonSpirit Health and LogistiCare Circulation’s commitment to providing an exceptional patient experience and are excited to extend that by providing a convenient and dependable transportation option to and from care delivery settings as well.”
This announcement comes on the heels of a similar one made with Lyft and Sutter Health earlier this year. The rideshare deal aims to close care access gaps among Sutter patients will giving Sutter providers, especially home care providers, access to rides between jobs.
“We are reimagining the ways we provide and deliver care, which includes increasing access to services and making them more convenient,” said Chris Waugh, chief innovation officer for Sutter Health. “For some, it’s not as simple as traveling from Point A to Point B. There are numerous real-world factors in between. Our approach takes the burden away from our patients and staff, and puts them in the best position to receive the care they need or deliver the care they are trained to give.”
Lyft has proven effective at closing the medical transportation gap, reporting in 2019 that 29 percent of Lyft users had gotten to a medical appointment using the service in the previous year. Twenty-eight percent of users said that without Lyft, they would not have been able to get to their appointment.
Source: Patient Engagement Hit