An Uber or Lyft could be your next ambulance — here’s how innovation is disrupting the healthcare transportation market
When it comes to Ubers and Lyfts replacing traditional ambulances, you might think, “How can part-time taxi drivers disrupt the ambulance market? Aren’t ambulances manned by highly skilled professionals?”
It’s a logical question. The first thing to understand is that a huge portion of “healthcare transportation” doesn’t occur in emergency situations. Ambulances (and ambulettes) spend much of their time providing services to patients who aren’t in life-threatening situations — sometimes they’re not ill at all. These services can include shuttling patients between medical facilities, home-to-office appointment transport, and rushing patients to a hospital in circumstances that aren’t actually dire.
Uber and Lyft, the two companies that have already totally disrupted the ride-hailing industry, provide services that can accomplish all of the above with no trouble. If a patient isn’t experiencing an emergency, an Uber can be just as good of a choice for reaching a medical facility as an ambulance. In fact, many people are already making this choice.
Same game, new rules
Not only is using a taxi or rideshare service vastly cheaper than engaging an ambulance in most cases, it also empowers the customer in certain important ways. The paramedic driving an ambulance, for instance, may be obligated to transport patients to the nearest appropriate facility. But what if you want to go somewhere else?
Many health insurance carriers do offer coverage for similar, non-emergent transport options. The reality, though, is that Uber and Lyft can provide the same at a lesser cost — and incur less waste in the process.
People are noticing. In addition to a growing number of those opting for cheap Uber rides to the hospital over potentially life-changing ambulance bills, healthcare providers are getting on board. Well over 100 health care organizations are already using Uber Health, which is a dashboard that offers flexible ride scheduling for patients, caregivers and staff. User-friendly billing, reporting, and management features — as well as HIPAA compliance — are part of the package.
Lyft Concierge also allows organizations to schedule rides for employees or patrons, including riders who don’t have the Lyft app or even a smartphone. Concierge also integrates with established systems to make business processing a breeze for its customers.
Sometimes change is necessary
Many applaud these companies for their aggressive push into a relatively niche market, and it’s not hard to see where they’re coming from. According to a poll from bankrate.com, around 25 percent of Americans have turned down medical care because it was too expensive (ambulances can cost thousands).
The personal explanation of this kind of thing isn’t hard to find. According to one Reddit user, “My roommate and I have a deal: unless we are bleeding out our last drop of blood, we either drive each other to the hospital or call an Uber. An ambulance might save my life, but the cost would ruin it.”
Sadly, the sentiment isn’t uncommon. An estimated 3.6 million Americans miss medical appointments every year because they have no affordable way to get there.
It gets worse
Corruption is also rampant within the healthcare transportation industry. Medicare pays out billions per year to ambulance companies, and it’s anyone’s guess how many of those costs are incurred legitimately. In 2008, one company alone admitted to defrauding Medicare out of $6 million. Given the 15,000 or so ambulance services in the country, it’s not hard to see that number multiplying.
In many areas of the world, ambulance service is either offered for free, bought through membership, or paid for according to preset call-out and per-mile costs. In the U.S., by contrast, a lot of patients are subject to the whim (and sometimes criminal intentions) of companies in a long-stagnant industry. It’s hard to see additional options as anything but helpful.
One important point: it would be wrong to view this discussion solely in economic terms, because you can’t put a value on human life. Distinguishing between situations that require emergency care and those which don’t can be extremely difficult (sometimes even for experienced paramedics or doctors). When in doubt, call an ambulance, period.
Identifying opportunities for innovation
Uber and Lyft aren’t the only ones addressing the issue of medical transport in a new and creative manner. The incorporation of emergency telehealth programs, for instance, has been shown to reduce the necessity of emergency transportation in areas in which they are used.
In the end, innovation is about improvement. There are certain hallmarks of an industry ripe for disruption, and one of the main ones is that it generates big problems for users. As the Reddit user pointed out, if you get transported to the ER in an ambulance for a medical issue and are then responsible for a $10,000 ambulance bill, your whole life could be thrown off balance. It could induce credit card debt it takes you years to recover from.
Once upon a time, how do you book vacation accommodation? was answered with simply, “a hotel.” Not anymore, thanks to Airbnb. How do you purchase airfare? changed drastically with companies like Expedia and Kayak. Uber and Lyft obviously changed the answer to how do you get where you need to go? Their disruption of the healthcare transportation industry is a natural sequitur — they’re just expanding the original “where.”
