Skip to main content
Health Share, the sole provider of Medicaid services in the tri-county region, agreed late Sunday night to pay non-emergency transportation providers left holding the bag when Health Share's transportation provider, GridWorks LLC, went bust last week.
That's good news for the small independent transportation companies GridWorks failed to pay for providing tens of thousands of rides to medical appointments in October and all of November.
At 8:48 pm Sunday, Jeremy Koehler, Health Share's transportation director, sent out the following email message:
Dear NEMT Transportation Providers,
I am writing with an important update about payments for November and October NEMT services.
We know that the announcement last week that GridWorks has been placed into receivership (management by a third-party) and is unable to pay for past rides has caused stress and hardship. We also know and appreciate that you continue to provide essential rides to Health Share members every day. It is important to Health Share to reduce this hardship on you.
This weekend, the Health Share Board approved a one-time payment to NEMT providers as a settlement for money owed by GridWorks for November and October rides.
Health Share, whose owners include Providence Health & Services, Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University and Kaiser Permanente, has contracted with Care Oregon, a Portland Medicaid insurer, to take over non-emergency transportation for Health Share's more than 300,000 members.
GridWorks had been responsible for providing about 4,000 rides per day for Health Share members through mom-and-pop transportation companies that it stopped paying in October.
Those companies are now cautiously optimistic they can survive, although one provider speaking on background says the companies will wait until Health Share's money reaches their accounts on Dec. 27.