By Allison Proffitt 

December 5, 2017 Circulation today announced a preferred partnership with Lyft, the fastest growing rideshare company in the US. This partnership will expand non-emergency transportation options for Circulation’s clients nationwide, which currently number more than 1,000 healthcare facilities. Starting today, all Circulation users can schedule Lyft rides directly through Circulation’s on-demand patient-centric digital transportation platform.

Circulation launched its non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) business in September 2016 as the Preferred Healthcare Platform Partner of the Uber Developer Platform. Now the platform is an EHR-connected, HIPAA-compliant solution that brings a suite of options to healthcare providers who want or need to provide transportation services to their patients.

The transportation part of healthcare is a growing concern—costing money, time, and putting patient’s health at risk. In 2005, about 3.6 million individuals failed to receive non-emergency medical care due to transportation barriers, John Brownstein, co-founder of Circulation, told Clinical Informatics News last year at the company’s launch. Both private and government healthcare providers are wrestling with huge transportation needs, costs, and inefficiencies. For example, in 2016 Medicare Advantage plans offered non-emergency transportation to 69.5% of its beneficiaries. The federal government alone spends about $2.7 billion on non-emergency transportation each year.

In October 2016, the company launched its pilot phase testing Circulation’s transportation platform at hospitals and care facilities in Boston, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. By April 2017, the company announced over 30 new clients including top-tier hospitals, clinics, community health centers, and other healthcare facilities across the country, many of which had not previously used NEMT.

A funding round in July 2017 raised $10.5 million in Series A financing from investors including Flare Capital Partners, The Providence Service Corporation, Boston Children’s Hospital, Echo Health Ventures (a strategic collaboration of Cambia Health Solutions and Mosaic Health Solutions), Intermountain Healthcare, Innovation Fund, Humana, NextGen Venture Partners, and LabCorp.

“Over the past year since we’ve launched it’s been pretty insane. We’ve been growing the company to meet the demand. There’s a lot of inbound demand that’s occurred across the country to help solve transportation needs,” Brownstein said yesterday. “Millions of dollars are spent around missed appointments each year and a big chunk of missed appointments are because of lack of transportation. Our system is essentially attempting to bring efficiency: help patients get to their appointments, help patients get home, reduce costs associated with that transportation, and at the same time, bring the consumer convenience of new ride options to patients. 

Circulation now serves over 1,000 healthcare facilities across the country affiliated with 60 health systems. Facilities include hospitals, dialysis clinics, private clinics, and more. The Circulation team has grown to 21 people.  

Adding Lyft to the menu of options healthcare facilities can choose from when scheduling rides for patients is a “natural fit,” Brownstein said. “They’ve invested a lot in healthcare. They’ve done some really great pilot projects. They’ve got a team that’s really devoted to implementing integrations,” he explained. 

“Lyft represents a choice that many healthcare providers want in the system,” Brownstein explained. “This is an attempt to bring as much choice to healthcare as possible.”

For their part, Lyft has been actively pursuing work in the healthcare space for a while now. Early this year at the SCOPE Summit, Lyft and Continuum Clinical announced a partnership through which patients enrolled in clinical trials will be able to use the Lyft app or Lyft’s Concierge program to secure transportation to and from the trial site, free of charge.

"Transportation should be the last thing people need to worry about when getting to healthcare appointments,” said Gyre Renwick, Vice President of Lyft Business in a press release. “That’s why partnering with Circulation, an organization that is centered around patient convenience and simplicity, is a natural fit with our mission to improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation. Circulation seamlessly connects to Lyft’s API, making it easy for health facilities to request a Lyft ride when they need one. Together, we’re working to remove transportation barriers that previously stood in the way of getting people the care they need.”