The state’s largest Medicaid transportation provider has reached a settlement with state officials after a four-month legal fight that briefly threw medical transport for thousands of Coloradans into limbo.
The settlement, filed in Denver District Court last month, requires MedRide to institute several vetting processes to ensure its drivers are credentialed and its clients are legitimate Medicaid patients.
MedRide provides free rides to medical appointments for Medicaid patients, as part of a state program that, officials allege, was plagued with fraud two years ago.
The terms of the settlement are part of the state’s broader efforts to tighten the program’s requirements and payment structures.
In February, state officials had briefly suspended and then ended Colorado’s contract with MedRide, and state Medicaid accused MedRide of engaging in fraud.
MedRide denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit. A judge later blocked the contract termination, allowing the company to continue operating. MedRide and other providers previously told The Denver Post that they were struggling to comply with Medicaid’s shifting new vetting requirements, which included increased background checks and more documentation for longer trips.
MedRide had still been providing rides to patients through almost all of the legal saga, and the settlement means only that the ongoing lawsuit ends. The company provided 375,000 rides in Colorado last year, a spokesman previously told The Post.
“We are pleased to have reached this agreement so both MedRide and (the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing) can focus our time and resources on providing safe, affordable transportation services to eligible Colorado Medicaid members,” Medicaid Director Adela Flores-Brennan said in a statement.
In 2023, scores of new drivers had signed up for the transport program — known as non-emergency medical transportation — after state officials eased restrictions on the service. Some drivers packed their cars with multiple patients, including some who were picked up from homeless encampments, and drove them across the state to drug treatment programs, maximizing their profit and violating Medicaid rules.
Medicaid officials, who had previously been warned that the program needed tighter regulations, have refused to say how much money was lost in the scheme and have not said whether anyone has been arrested or charged. Medicaid then sought to tighten the program, prompting MedRide and other providers to complain that they weren’t being paid.
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