Medical Transportation Brokerage of Arizona

I am the Quality Manager for MTBA and have reviewed the customer’s complaint information.  First, I do want to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and dissatisfaction with transportation services expressed by the customer.MTBA, like transportation brokerages throughout the county,...

are experiencing a rapid increase in service demand as a result of the Affordable Act and increasing staff and transportation companies to attempt to keep up with the service demand.We appreciate the feedback and information provided by the customer and Quality Management has identified two service failures based on the customer’s information.  MTBA has a policy that when any caller is placed on “Hold”, at two minute intervals the customer service representatives are to come back on the line every two minutes to provided updated information on what they are doing and how much longer it might be.  By not doing this, customers are not given the opportunity to end the call and call back at a later time or may choose to continue to hold.Quality management has reported this issue to the MTBA Operations Manager for follow up and re-training of the customer service staff to ensure this policy is adhered to consistently in the future.Quality Management did locate the trip described in the customer’s complaint that resulted in a late cab assignment by the assigned transportation company and the customer was not transported and did miss his medical appointment.MTBA reports “Service Failures” to the various insurance companies and the insurance companies have set high standards for service levels and monitor this closely.MTBA is informing its’ customers that there are numerous alternatives to door-to-door taxi cab service that include:* A pre-paid bus pass that can be used 24/7 for any purpose to include transportation to and from  medical appointments.  This bus pass can be used in [redacted] County for either bus or rail service.* MTBA also offers a “Friends and Family* reimbursement program the will pay either a customer’s friend or family member a gas reimbursement at a specified rate if they transport a customer to and from a necessary medical appointment for a covered service.  This customer may call and request reimbursement information from MTBA.MTBA maintains a unique customer account for each of its customers and this customer’s account has been “Flagged” to indicate timeliness issues and a note stating, “Do not leave on hold for more than two minutes intervals’.MTBA is constantly searching for and recruiting qualified transportation providers throughout [redacted] County to increase the number of transportation providers under contract with MTBA in an attempt to improve both timeliness and coverage.Again, MTBA regrets and does apologize to this customer for his inconvenience and look forward to providing him better service in the future.Sincerely,[redacted]Quality ManagerMTBA

I have had serious trouble arranging transportation, it has been on going for 3 months and I have missed several appointments and am afraid its a waste of time to try. I have been given false information on more than one ocassion. today I was attempting to get information regarding a bus pass application and the representative did not have that information so I request to speak to a supervisor, 3 times and 3 times I was put on hold before being transferred to my insurance company. I called again and spoke to another representative and again request the information and again requested a supervisor and again was transfered to my insurance company.

I am desperate to get help with the problems with this company. I live at least one hour from my doctors andI have had to constantly cancel and reschedule my appointments because the drivers are so late there isn't time to get to my appts. on time or they don't show up at all. The last incident was 7/30/15 and 8/11/15. It is important that I get to the oncologist for a port flush. I had to reschedule and this last time I called them early @ 10am because I hadn't recieved a confirmation call from the driver and the girl had to call dispatch to arrange for a pick up and assured me they would be on time which wa supposed to be @ 12pm. She said she knew I had been having alot of trouble with this company and would go the extra mile to help me. However I had to call @ 11am and cancel due to severe storms in phoenix and dangerous traffic conditions. They told me the driver was coming @ 11:36 which would have been too late anyway. At 2pm a driver showed up and said no one told her it was canceled and that would have been way to late anyway. I always insist on dial a ride because they have never been late and Itell them I don'twant yellow cab because they are always late or don't show up. This is causing me extreme anxiety where I can't sleep the night before and have to take medication for anxiety because of this.They have lied about when the driver is on their way when they were no where near here and would have been too late. The dr.s officeare getting angry with the constant last minute reschedules andI'm afraid they are going to start refusing me care. I called the insurance co. to report them as I suspect they are still being billed for these scheduled no shows. I have talked to other elderly dependent on rides with this co. and the story is always the same and sometimes even worse. I'm going to call medicare and complain though I doubt if it will do any good. Please let me know if you can help or what I can do. I tried to get on with the company my 92 yr. old mother has Logisticare, but she's on long term care and I'm not even though we both have the same ins. [redacted] Complete theywouldn't. let me change. [redacted] is always on time and have no problems with them at all.

This company is horrible! They left my disabled father stranded at his doctors office. After more than 2 hours, he called me and I had to come from work to pick him up. They are heartless to have these people at their mercy just to leave them stranded; I have read the other reviews. I attempted to file a complaint with MTBA for 2 days in a row just to be transferred to a generic mailbox that wouldn't allow me to leave a message. I will be notifying his insurance company to file a complaint. If this company has a contract with AHCCCS, it should be pulled immediately due to complete incompetence!

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait until for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,[redacted]

This company is very unreliable, inefficient and unresponsive to complaints regarding the Prescott Transport authority which the company arranges Medical Transport through. Customers wait in excess of 2 hours for pre-arranged and pre-approved medical taxi service to transport them home from surgery an a regular basis. The confirmation numbers that the patients were given when the services were scheduled are often incorrect when we call ATBA back and we are give yet another confirmation number. When nursing staff and patients call about late or no-show rides, no one answering the phones seem to have any idea what is going on or who arranged the rides. The nursing staff is then promised taxi service in a specified period of time. The nurses take the patients to the curb and No ride ever shows up. Customers report that they have waited at home for rides that never come and waiting at medical facilities long after they close for rides that were promised many hours prior

I do want to apologize for the timeliness issue created by a significant increase in our service demand due to the biggest sporting event of the year, the Super Bowl.  We continually strive to ensure our transportation vehicle availability is at a level that will allow for the timely service...

our customers expect.  We are a company that values all of its' customers and since the time of this less than acceptable service, changes have been made to both staffing and we have increased our vehicle fleet with more independent and employee drivers.  I can assure you, [redacted] was not "billed" for this trip as the billing system is not based on single trips or even trips that were canceled.  Again, our sincere apology for the lateness of our transportation and we will continue to listen to and respond in a positive way to our customers and providers.[redacted]Quality Manager

This company is a joke. I have had to cancel 4 doctor appointments in 2 months because they were so late or did not show up at all. It takes 10 to 20 mins to get through on the phone every time. The cab drivers have told me that the people in the call center have given them problems as well. Stating that they lie a lot. On a return trip from a doctor apt I called the same cab driver, he picked me up. I had to call in my confirmation number while sitting in the back of the cab the lady on the phone told me there were no availably cabs. Another time the lady told me the cab had come and gone. That was not possible because I was waiting in the only entrance/exit to the building where I was to be picked up. wow how can they lie and be late so much and stay in business.

The Quality Management and Compliance Department forwarded the complaint information to the company Finance Manager who is ultimately responsible for all financial activities to include reimbursement.  The Finance Manager reported he met with one of the owners to review and discuss this...

customer's situation and dissatisfaction.The Finance Manager forwarded an email to the Quality Manager as follows:Hello: Attached is a spread sheet of areport I ran to show payments for Claimant [redacted]. The last check wesent to her was in August 2014 for $43.75. I spoke with [redacted] and I had her diginto all her files to look up faxes, emails, or anything we can lay our hands onfrom her about this complaint. We have no faxes from her on the dates sheclaimed. I want to know where she faxed that paperwork, and who she sent it to?Because we don’t seem to see that info and have no records to verify.At this time we are unable to locate the faxes the customer has claimed to have sent.  We will need to know where the faxes were sent and approximately when. [redacted]Finance ManagerAAA Transportation[redacted]

The past two days my daughter that is in a wheelchair has been stranded two different times by this company. The first one she was one hour and twenty minutes late being picked up and when she got to her Dr. office she couldn't be seen because she was so late. Then yesterday after a different Dr. appointment she was stranded again. She called them 4 different times to see what was going on. Each time they said it would be 10-20 minutes and they would have someone there to pick her up. Finally when I got off of work I was able to go get her. It was 2 1/2 hours after her appointment ended. They have done this a number of times. The absolutely worst company as far as customer service and reliability.

When they do a good job, which they usually do, I'm happy and barely think about them. It's only when they really screw up that I feel compelled to complain and give a bad rating. I want to be fair, though, and give positive reviews when they do things right. So here it is.

Due to an auto accident I am left at the mercy of this company to get to me to appointments now and then. After a no show and no call from the cab company for an appointment today I called customer service. The lady who answered was very much an [redacted]. She wouldnt let me respond..kept talking over me...and had a tone in her voice that I wouldnt let my six year old talk to me with let alone another adult...she always had something to say back and interrupted me to say it....I asked to speak with a supervisor RIGHT NOW!! because I wasnt going to continue the call with her....she placed me on a hold for 15 mintues until I hung up and called back. The gentleman who answered was a breeze to work with then. It took all but five minutes to get everything straightened out and new cab dispatched...it should not have taken 25 minutes of my morning to get five minutes worth of work done but customer service seems to be a lost art nowadays especially with THIS company.

I schedule appts & transport for a Skilled Nursing Facility. I currently have a patient that goes to dialysis 3 times a week. The patient has transportation benefits with her AHCCCS plan APIPA. The transportation is constently late if they even show up @ all. This is not the first time I have had problems with them, it is an ongoing problem. I schedule transport in advance so they should also but they don't they put it in a cue & whoever gets it takes it, doesn't matter if it's late or not. This has been going on for years.