NEMT Experts

Erin Wakefield runs Yellow Cab Medical Transport out of Salem, Oregon: 44 vehicles, 40 of them wheelchair and stretcher vans, and somewhere around 200 to 250 rides on a normal day. She stepped in to fix her dad's taxi business for one summer almost 14 years ago and never left.

In Part 1, Erin and Nirav get into the pricing rule behind her famous banana story: if a broker or facility won't pay what a ride actually costs, someone else can have it. She covers why you still need ambulatory service even though it doesn't make money, how tires, insurance-required cameras and workers' comp keep pushing costs up, why most of her broker work is recovery trips other providers dropped, and how she hires and keeps drivers who treat riders right.

Part 2 premieres October 21. Bambi is the NEMT software you deserve. Learn more at hibambi.com.

Skilled nursing facilities send out thousands of non-emergency rides every week, and almost no broker is built to serve them. Tanner Leishman saw that gap firsthand after acquiring Bayline Medical Transport in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it led him to co-found the NEMA Network: a network that connects skilled nursing facilities, hospice agencies, and RCFEs directly with credentialed NEMT providers, at rates set by county in advance.

Tanner and Nirav get into why SNF rides are some of the most efficient work an operator can run (recurring trips that start and end at the same facility, fewer deadhead miles), why "who's paying for the ride" trips up so many operators chasing direct contracts, and why the NEMA Network screens out roughly half its applicants on basics like W-2 drivers, background checks, and workers' comp coverage. He also shares what happened when a facility turned them down for a provider charging $100 less per ride.

Tanner walks through how the network got its start in California. It is now onboarding facilities and NEMT operators nationwide, and providers can apply at nemanetwork.com. If you run a quality NEMT operation and want facility rides that pay like it, this one is for you.

Recorded live at NEMTAC Transform 2026 in Orlando. Bambi CEO Nirav Chheda joins B811 Medical Transportation owner Roslyn Robinson-Taggart and Modivcare VP Holly Graham for a panel moderated by Howard Berkowitz on one question: will AI make non-emergency medical transportation more accessible for riders, or will the gains mostly show up as efficiency for brokers, payers and providers?

The panel gets specific fast. Why the one metric the industry should track is missed and late appointments, not on-time percentage in aggregate. Why "send the closest available driver" quietly starves the stretcher, bariatric and oxygen trips that make up a real share of daily volume. Why AI dash cams turn two weeks of late pickups from noise into a five-minute conversation instead of an incident. And where the line sits: AI recommends, humans decide, especially on safety and eligibility.

It closes with an audience question on Waymo and robotaxis, and a candid split between the provider view (nobody is loading a wheelchair rider from a driverless car) and the broker view (every broker in the country is already piloting TNCs for unassisted ambulatory trips). Then it ends the way the conference did: with Bambi taking the stage for the NEMTAC 2026 Innovation in NEMT Award. Listen on Spotify or watch on YouTube at the Bambi channel.

We did this one differently. Instead of one guest in a studio, Nirav took a mic onto the NEMTAC Transform 2026 exhibit floor in Orlando and grabbed 16 conversations in two days — operators, insurance brokers, vehicle manufacturers, inspection tech, and the people who run the show itself. It's the closest thing to walking the floor yourself without buying a plane ticket.Inside: BraunAbility's John Masselli walks through the new rear-entry Toyota Sienna XL (39.5" ramp, 15 lbs of operating force, production starts in November). Three insurance voices — Tom Clancy of Research Underwriters, Evan Chambers of Higginbotham, and Mark Crawford of Swan Insurance — give the same advice from three directions: telematics and dashcams won't cut your premium on day one, but they kill the frivolous claims that wreck your loss ratio, and you should be pulling loss runs quarterly instead of finding out at renewal. Jeff Hoff of ReliaWheels lays out exactly what he looks at when he evaluates buying an NEMT business — customer concentration first, fleet age second. Jim Cermak of Driverge makes the case that driver training is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy. Hamed Yazdi explains why Rideshare Mechanic became Bright Inspect, and why AI makes vehicle-inspection fraud easier, not harder.Plus: Hayes Stills debuts ADAboy's new minivan conversion, Scott Symonds on how adding a Broda chair opened up complex-orthopedic trips at SmartRide, Howard Berkowitz and Dave Swanner of MyRide SC on why one-man stretcher transport is never the answer, operators Hossein Mokhtari and Nikola Simic on doubling a fleet to 30 vehicles in a year, Lakeisha of Right Hand Transportation on getting her sister dispatching in a day, NEMTAC's Eva Keidel on what's new at Transform, and TTA's Rebecca Tonkinson on Mobilize in Anaheim this October.⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Cold open00:09 Eva Keidel — NEMTAC — what's new at Transform 202601:52 John Masselli — BraunAbility — the new rear-entry Toyota Sienna XL06:19 Hayes Stills — ADAboy — new minivan conversion debut07:33 Scott Symonds — SmartRide — managed care growth + adding Broda09:11 Hossein Mokhtari & Nikola Simic — operators — doubling the fleet10:53 Lakeisha — Right Hand Transportation — onboarding a dispatcher in a day11:55 Jim Cermak — Driverge — the driver training module that pays for itself13:46 John Rinaldi — Green Cab — 30% efficiency and credentialing by agency15:43 Howard Berkowitz & Dave Swanner — MyRide SC — stretcher standards18:21 Jeff Hoff — ReliaWheels — how to evaluate buying an NEMT business20:51 Tom Clancy — Research Underwriters — telematics, cameras, loss runs23:17 Evan Chambers — Higginbotham — picking an agent who knows NEMT27:09 Mark Crawford — Swan Insurance — the 2026 hard market28:27 Hamed Yazdi — Bright Inspect — virtual vehicle inspections33:47 Rebecca Tonkinson — TTA — Mobilize, Anaheim, Oct 26–28🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/56zxEK8t7nNSQcgig5gQkQ

Mike Cynar, Bob Doerr, and Dave Dilday started On Time NEMT in Hampton Roads, Virginia in April 2026. Fourteen weeks later they had run over 200 trips, almost all of them private pay. They did not chase broker contracts. They spent two and a half months walking into nursing homes and assisted living facilities asking one question: what is your pain point with NEMT providers? The answer came back the same every time. They show up late, or they do not show up at all. So the founders named the company after the fix.

Mike runs the Google Ads side and he gives away the whole playbook in this episode. Bid on exact match, not broad. Load your negative keywords before you spend a dollar, because Medicaid, jobs, free, Uber, and software will drain the account. Review your search terms once a week and add what you do not want to pay for. Start at $20 a day until the account is dialed in, then turn it up. Ads are now 45% of their revenue at roughly $1,500 a month in spend, with clicks running $3 to $10 depending on service type.

Then Nirav pushes on the numbers, and the founders open the books. They are not profitable yet, and they explain exactly why: their model has employees driving, not owners, so the first three vans carry costs most one-van operators never see. Their pro forma says the fifth van is where it turns, and inside two years they expect 10 to 12 vans and at least a million a year in profit. A broker wheelchair trip pays $80 to $100. Their average wheelchair trip pays $186, collected at time of service. That is the whole argument for private pay, in one number.

Carolynn Belke needed a ride to a specialist in San Francisco nine years ago and could not find one. Today she and her business partner Jose run California Accessible Transportation out of Redding, California with 17 drivers, 15 vehicles and a plan to hit 20 by year end. They started in a garage with two vehicles, a dining room office, no loans and no leases.

The growth engine is not brokers. Hospital discharges make up roughly 60% of CAT's rides, which means work that cannot be pre-scheduled and drivers staged at hospitals on standby with nothing on the board. Carolynn walks through how she staffs for that: extending hours to 3 a.m. through 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday, adding an evening dispatcher, and deliberately leaving driver schedules blank because the phone always rings.

She also gets specific about the parts nobody warns you about. Eighteen months of 100% private pay while waiting on California state approval. Cold calls, flyers and enough cookies dropped at facilities that people started calling her the cookie lady. A competitor pitch built on "promises and false hope." Why she says no to seven discharges in a day rather than lower her hiring bar. And how she sets rates in an industry where nobody will tell you what they charge.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KDGh4_gCq30

Two NEMT owners installed AI dashcams for completely different reasons — and landed in the same place. In Part 3 of our AI dashcam series, Bambi CEO Nirav Chheda talks with Erin Wakefield of Yellow Cab Medical Transport and Cho Ndiforchu of Skyline Transport about what Motive actually changed in their operations.

Erin didn't have a choice: her insurer required cloud-connected cameras with carrier access. What she got back was a live operational picture — tracking a driver mid-route, pulling ETAs before a drop-off, and a safety score she now uses to decide who gets on the schedule at all. One of her drivers sits at 55. He doesn't get shifts until he climbs. Her carrier will pull a driver off the policy outright above a certain risk score.

Cho spent years running $60 SD-card cameras and refusing to pay $35 a month per vehicle. The thing that changed his mind wasn't the recording — it was the deterrent. Drivers stopped reaching for their phones because something was actively watching and logging. He also makes the case nobody makes out loud: the savings are real but uncountable, because you never see the accident that didn't happen. Both owners are candid that the AI gets it wrong — it will flag a rolled stop in an empty parking lot — and that reviewing before coaching is non-negotiable.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jOf_WLE5JvI

Insurance is quietly rewriting the rules for NEMT — and for a growing number of providers, an AI dashcam is no longer optional. In Part 2 of our AI dashcam series, Bambi CEO Nirav Chheda talks with two operators running Netradyne: Jim Ingalls, Director of Operations at MediCab of Rochester in New York, and Stephen Jordan of Wheelchair Transport Service, who leads safety for a 170+ vehicle fleet in Florida.

Jim got his cameras because his insurer required them to renew coverage — and walked away saving money on an apples-to-apples policy. He walks through rolling the system out to drivers who've been with him for 40 years, why he turned the inward-facing cameras on one conversation at a time, and how event-based recording and gamified coaching quietly pushed his fleet's safety scores from the 600s into the 900s. He also shares the rear-end claim that video settled cleanly, and the one feature he's still waiting for: securement detection that warns a driver when a passenger isn't tied down.

Stephen has run Netradyne across 170+ vehicles in the Florida heat for about a year and a half, after burning through three or four camera systems that couldn't survive the climate or the support gaps. He explains why the local customer success manager sealed the deal, how contextual AI — not just "they rolled a stop," but "they passed safely" — changes coaching, and why he calls switching a no-brainer. If you're weighing whether AI dashcams are worth it, this is two unfiltered operator perspectives back to back.

One claim can put you out of business. That's the reality driving this episode of NEMT Experts, where Bambi CEO Nirav Chheda sits down with Kunu Kaushal, owner of SST Mobility in Tennessee, for Part 1 of our AI dashcam series: Samsara.

Kunu has run fleet vehicles for 17 years and worked through four generations of dashcam products, from memory-card cameras to connected cams with no real reporting. He explains what finally made AI-powered monitoring different: the system watches for unsafe behaviors on its own, scores every driver, and cut his team's video review time from 5-10 hours a week down to about 10 minutes.

You'll hear the litigation story that convinced him to never run a vehicle without a camera, why he benchmarks against fleets bigger than his own before buying, what Samsara still needs to improve, and his honest take on the question every provider asks: will AI dashcams actually lower my insurance costs?

Bambi CEO Nirav Chheda talks with Cedric Pashi, the cofounder of the NEMT business MyRyde in Cincinnati, Ohio, about his goal of selling his NEMT business in 5 years from starting. Being already 2 years into the business, Cedric explains his strategies to make the business sell-able in 3 years.For an introduction to Cedric, email "[email protected]"_________________________________________________________________________#NEMT #nemtbusiness #nemtsoftware #NEMTDispatch #MedicalTransport #NEMTExperts #RunBambiRunBambi — the NEMT software you deserve. Making NEMT easy since 2023.What is Bambi?: https://youtu.be/gXBWrZiGI8kWebsite: https://www.hibambi.com/Contact Bambi for a demo: https://www.hibambi.com/contact_________________________________________________________________________LETS GET SOCIAL!Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bambi_health/Follow us on TikTok:⁠ https://www.tiktok.com/@bambi_nemtFollow us on X: https://twitter.com/bambi_healthFollow us on Facebook: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/bambihealthFollow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bambi-health/