Would You Trust a Stranger to Drive Your Grandma to the Doctor?

As we get older, our parents rely on us to take care of them. There’s a sense of responsibility in this: The roles are reversed, and now it’s up to us to make sure our parents are healthy and safe. In part, that means helping our parents manage their health, including getting them to doctor appointments. While most of us wish we could be there in person, sometimes that’s not possible. With those aged 65 and older expected to make up over 20 percent of America’s population by 2040, according to the Administration on Aging, new companies are stepping in to assist senior citizens when family members can’t. Companies like Oceans Drive Transportation

“When you get to a certain age, we’ve all had our parents call us for help getting to an appointment,”. Oceans Drive Transportation seeks to redefine the non-emergency medical transportation industry to keep patients safe, healthy, and independent. 

Another goal of Oceans Drive Transportation is making customers and their families aware that transportation to and from appointments may be covered by Medicare, and working with government and insurance providers to increase that benefit’s annual limit, which Itano says many patients exhaust within the first half of the year.

Oceans Drive Transportation wants to get patients to their appointments. Aging often correlates with a decline in the ability to drive or navigate public transportation, making the elderly particularly vulnerable to missing necessary medical appointments. 

Often, patients who use the transportation benefit still miss their appointments due to driver no-shows or late pickups, absences that concerned family members may not learn of until it’s too late. 

According to a recent Government Accountability Office study, the non-emergency medical transport industry “is at high risk for fraud and abuse,” and billions of dollars are spent by the government paying for trips that no one can confirm even happened. If they do make their appointment, patients can be left for hours at clinics and hospitals waiting to be driven home. With such a low quality of care and service, many prefer to not use the benefit at all, resulting in preventable and costly hospitalizations.

In March, Uber launched the platform UberHealth, which allows doctors to book rides to the hospital on behalf of patients. The problem is that Uber isn’t exactly known for accommodating customers with special needs, which, if you’re dealing with riders who cannot drive themselves, seem likely. Even before the rideshare company ventured into health care, Uber faced lawsuits that accused UberWAV—the service that provides wheelchair-friendly vehicles—of subpar service compared to its flagship product. Last July, Disability Rights Advocates sued Uber for discrimination, claiming UberWAV provides inconsistent access to accessible vehicles and imposes long wait times. 

Unlike transportation apps like Uber and Lyft, which rely on their everyday drivers to transport sick, aging, and mobility-challenged patients, Oceans Drive Transportation matches patients to drivers based on their level of need. If a patient is in a wheelchair, on a gurney, or requires assistance walking, Oceans Drive Transportation drivers are trained CNAs—a certification that involves basic medical and CPR training—and equipped to handle it. 

For Oceans Drive Transportation drivers, nothing is taken lightly when it comes to maintaining a sick or elderly person’s dignity while taking them to a hospital. Itano says, “If the patient is wobbly, do you carry them or offer an arm? If they’re struggling with bags, do you offer to take them, or let them do it themselves? Health care professionals are trained to communicate in a specific, almost therapeutic, way. Lay people are not. We train our drivers to do this.” 

Sometimes these appointments are confusing. In addition to driving patients from point A to point B and back, Oceans Drive Transportation drivers are trained to ask their patients if they understood everything that went on at the appointment. If the answer is no, Oceans Drive Transportation coordinators pass that info on to the responsible clinical teams so they can follow up. 

Oceans Drive Transportation also creates patient profiles based on the rides they’ve taken and tracks things like mobility, cognitive and behavioral information, and appointment type. From there, Oceans Drive Transportation makes recommendations to the drivers to ensure both parties are comfortable and safe. If a patient has a history of getting car sick or gets anxiety before doctor’s appointments, that’s in the profile so the Oceans Drive Transportation drivers—all of whom have been through HIPAA compliance training and are trained to mitigate and prevent any incidents—aren’t caught unawares. 

If Oceans Drive Transportation knows the patient has a condition that requires frequent visits, the company can easily see if that person is missing appointments. Itano gives the example of a dialysis patient. If that person misses those appointments, it’s like forgetting to take crucial medication, and it can lead to hospitalization or death. If Oceans Drive Transportation notices that the patient hasn’t scheduled their normal rides, they reach out to the patient, primary care doctor, or case manager for a follow-up. For someone in need of dialysis, this sort of attention can prevent a long hospitalization, hefty medical bills, or worse. 

Isn’t that better than just calling your grandma an Uber and hoping she gets in the car on time?