Since 2009, husband and wife Eddie and Kara Harris have owned and operated Choice Transport, a non-emergency medical transportation service that offers wheelchair and ambulatory transportation to doctor appointments, dialysis and other non-emergency appointments for Montgomery residents. Last week, Eddie and Kara sent a letter to the Alabama Medicaid Agency requesting a meeting with Commissioner Bo Offord to express their concerns over decreased rates that have come in the wake of the Trump administration’s gutting of federal Medicaid funding.
“For the past 16 years, we have been one of the leading transportation providers in Montgomery for Non-Emergency Medical Transportation. We built this business from the ground up with no help or loans. We have serviced an average of 500 transports per week for Medicaid recipients for the past 10 years. We service dialysis centers, cancer centers, nursing homes, residential homes, hospitals, and more. We have been providing services for the most vulnerable recipients who cannot get to life-preserving services,” the Harrises’ letter states.
The Harrises recently provided APR with the notice they received from the Alabama Medicaid Agency, which announced their rate decrease. The letter, which the Harrises say they received on July 1, states that Choice Transport and all other companies providing non-emergency medical transportation services to Medicaid recipients in the state will be subject to a new standardized flat rate starting August 1, 2025.
According to the notice, the new flat rate for transportation services within a 25-mile radius is $35 for ambulatory patients and $70 for wheelchair patients. For transportation services beyond a 25-mile radius, those rates increase by $0.70 and $1.05, respectively, per additional mile. These new rates represent a marked 30 to 45 percent decrease in compensation for Choice Transport, which had previously received $50 for transporting ambulatory patients and $125 for patients in wheelchairs.
With 90 percent of their clientele being Medicaid recipients over the past 16 years, the Harrises told APR that they will no longer be able to sustain Choice Transport if the new rates persist. While the couple expressed that they would personally be able to withstand the financial repercussions of losing their business, they do not want to leave Medicaid recipients without access to the critical transportation services they provide.
“My wife and I could walk away from the business right now, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it,” Eddie Harris told APR.
The Harrises are now hoping to negotiate a return to their previous rates with Medicaid Commissioner Offord.
“We are requesting a meeting to express our concerns regarding how payments to transporters are made and the recent rate decrease,” the Harrises state in their letter. “We have not stopped transporting Medicaid recipients, as some have reported to us that they have been told by Medicaid. However, on July 1, 2025, we were notified that our pay would be reduced by about half. Even though insurance, fuel, maintenance, labor costs are increasing, we were told that is not Medicaid’s responsibility.”
“Transporting people, especially wheelchair recipients, is a costly business,” they added. “We average $5,000 per month in Commercial Liability Insurance, about $2,000 per week for fuel, at least $500 per week for vehicle maintenance, and $2,800 per week in labor cost. Furthermore, on July 11, we were told that the Social Workers could no longer send in vouchers. This has been a vital paper trail for our business since 2009. Without a paper trail, we have no way to know when or if we will be paid.”
The Harrises also explained in their letter that payments are already unreliable due to inaccurate claims matching from providers, exacerbating the financial impact Choice Transport will feel if the newly decreased rates continue.
“We have evidence that we have transported numerable eligible Medicaid recipients to up to 30 appointments or more only to find out a year later that the claim is denied because the doctor did not file Medicaid but used the recipient’s other insurance. In the meantime, we have spent money on insurance, fuel, maintenance, and labor cost, but we are the only business that is not paid,” the Harrises stated. “Those 30 appointments end up being thousands of dollars we never see. We established a paper trail for our business to manage costs and have some kind of predictability of payment. But without a paper trail, we are running our business in the blind.”
The Harrises claim that over the years, they have lost “upward of one million dollars” from transportation services that went uncompensated.
“We have sincere care for your Medicaid recipients. Most of them we have been transporting for years. They have become like family to us, but this drastic change has done them a disservice because we cannot afford to transport them,” the letter continues. “We have recently learned through this change that we were one of the last transporters in Montgomery accepting Medicaid. How sad. Medicaid recipients call us daily in tears seeking answers. Some of these recipients may not live to see this resolved, but we are praying that someone will help them.”
“We look forward to hearing from you soon as to the day and time of the meeting. We are simply requesting the same meeting that was held with the dialysis centers. We were told that they received an extension for sending vouchers, but we were not made aware of this, and we received no extension for what our previous payment was,” the Harrises added. “We are only seeking clarity. Also, we have been made aware that ambulances are now transporting the Medicaid recipients at about six times the cost of what we were being paid. For us to continue to transport, we are asking for our payments to be restored and claims matching to cease.”
As of publication, the Harrises say they have not received a response to their letter from Offord or the Alabama Medicaid Agency.
“As far as we know, they have declined to meet with us,” Kara Harris told APR Sunday.
The Alabama Medicaid Agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the Harrises’ letter or the new flat rate for non-emergency transportation services.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
