DOH and Medical Answering Service Hold Webinar on Transition to Serving Long Island
The Department of Health (DOH) and Medical Answering Service (MAS) held a stakeholder webinar last week for Long Island medical providers on the transition of Medicaid Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) from Modivcare to MAS. Dec. 1st is the date of the transition. The stakeholder meeting recording is available here.
MAS should be actively reaching out to LeadingAge NY members to explain the process for transferring existing trips from Modivcare to the MAS portal and the process of scheduling future trips. The process will entail all Medicaid NEMT trips being transferred over to their new system. Current transportation vendors, resident information, trip times, locations, and dates will all carry over to the MAS system. All existing transportation vendors will remain in place.
The stakeholder meeting entailed a review of the MAS portal and a general review of the transition. MAS has a Long Island team engaged in outreach to help providers utilize the new MAS portal. We urge members to engage in the process early and confirm the trips under the new system to avoid confusion or unexpected changes. MAS confirmed that preferred transportation vendors will be provided to prevent trip cancellations as had been occurring previously under MAS.
This transition is part of the MAS contract to move to a broker “managed” model where it will negotiate transportation rates with transportation vendors. MAS contracts with vendors will be established in early 2024. Members should note that this current transition does not impact social adult day care (SADC) or Managed Long Term Care plans (MLTCs) that manage transportation. Changes for those entities will occur later in 2024.
Long term care providers, in the meantime, should review the MAS website, which has many tutorials and more information about using the system, as well as review the stakeholder meeting recording. Questions should be directed to the MAS contact for long term care providers on Long Island – Saleha Shaikh, 718-912-1127, sshaikh@medanswering.com.
Please reach out to LeadingAge NY if you have additional questions.
Contact: Meg Everett, meverett@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871