The Medical Transportation Access Coalition applauded the introduction of the bipartisan Protecting Patients Transportation to Care Act (H.R. 3935) that seeks to add the longstanding Medicaid non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) benefit to the Medicaid statute.
The legislation – introduced by Representatives Buddy Carter (R-GA), Tony Cardenas (D-CA), Tom Graves (R-GA) and Sanford Bishop (D-GA) – seeks to take what has been a longstanding Medicaid regulation to help beneficiaries who lack access to reliable transportation and incorporate it into the statute. The bill also seeks to protect the integrity of the benefit by requiring states to implement prior authorization or utilization management requirements for their programs.
MTAC looks forward to working with the bill’s sponsors and the Energy & Commerce Committee to advance this bill to protect the NEMT benefit and Medicaid beneficiary access to NEMT services. The introduction of the bill follows approval of legislation by the House of Representatives in June that contained a provision that would prohibit spending of any federal resources in Fiscal Year 2020 on regulations intending to limit the NEMT benefit.