How Call the Car and Uber Health are strengthening healthcare transportation across California
Transportation is foundational to healthcare access
Call the Car provides reliable non-medical transportation (NMT) services for its members across diverse demographic landscapes to achieve better health outcomes. Uber Health has helped thousands of healthcare providers, health plans, social care organizations, and NMT brokers like Call the Car provide access to non-medical transportation since 2018.
Today, Uber Health serves as a critical transportation solutions partner for Call the Car—helping strengthen reliability, the member experience, and program integrity at scale.
The partnership delivers reliability, transparency, and stronger oversight at scale
Since implementing Uber Health as its primary partner for enabling access to non-medical transportation, Call the Car and Uber Health have driven measurable improvements across the program, including:
99.5%
Maintained a 99.5% ride fulfillment rate while serving an average of nearly half a million trips per month¹
99.67%
Demonstrated consistent on-time performance throughout the transition, averaging a 99.67% average on-time rate¹
25%
Reduced member no-show rates by approximately 25%, supported by real-time trip tracking through the Uber app¹
Transportation as healthcare infrastructure
For many patients, a ride to care is a ride to better health
Transportation is healthcare infrastructure. For many Americans, accessing care often requires multiple trips each week to specialized facilities for treatments such as dialysis, chemotherapy, and other critical appointments.
For patients with chronic conditions who require frequent medical treatment, reliable transportation is especially essential to maintaining consistent access to care.
At California scale, reliability becomes an operational challenge
Many people across California’s 58 counties face similar challenges and rely on dependable transportation services week after week to access essential care. As such, the California non-medical transportation (NMT) landscape operates at significant scale, with high volumes and complex operational demands across a large and diverse state.
At the same time, health plans are under growing pressure to improve outcomes while managing costs. This has placed greater focus on Call the Car’s program integrity, operational efficiency, and reducing fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA).
The network behind reliable access to care
Call the Car provides reliable non-emergency medical transportation services, including wheelchair transportation and medical rides, ensuring access to critical medical appointments while addressing the state's existing transportation challenges at scale. Through a trusted network of transportation providers, Call the Car manages complex healthcare transportation programs to deliver reliable, compliant, and high-quality service for health plans, medical groups, state-sponsored programs, and care facilities.
A trusted partner, now at the centre of the program
Previously a backup rideshare platform, Uber Health now represents one of Call the Car's key partners for access to non-medical transportation. While the two organizations have partnered for years, Call the Car ultimately selected Uber Health as its primary transportation solutions partner thanks to its expansive network, enhanced member experience, and ability to integrate seamlessly into existing healthcare workflows.
Reliable transportation isn't a nice-to-have – it's healthcare access. Uber Health had already earned our trust as a backup partner, and that gave us confidence they could meet the demands of our program as a primary partner, too. Together, we're helping support dependable access to transportation at the scale our programs require while improving visibility, strengthening program integrity, and keeping members connected to care.
– Michael Fell, COO of Call the Car
The problem: Reliability, scale, and program integrity at risk
Transportation in healthcare is fundamentally different from consumer transportation. Members aren't travelling to optional social events or airports for an exciting trip––they're travelling to dialysis, chemotherapy, and other life-sustaining appointments. Therefore, a missed or late ride can carry real medical consequences. Reliability is a core value proposition to Call the Car’s health plans and members alike.
Reliable rides require complex operations behind the scenes
What’s more, delivering reliable transportation for healthcare requires more than simply arranging a ride. Behind every successful trip is a complex operational network that must ensure consistent ride fulfillment across high-volume programs, reduce late pickups and cancellations, manage member no-shows, and maintain service quality across diverse demographics.
Program integrity matters at scale
Program integrity adds another layer of complexity. When administering transportation benefits at scale, organizations have an obligation to health plans and their members to ensure every dollar is being used appropriately. Safety and compliance aren't just audit checkboxes––they're fundamental to maintaining trust with customers.
The challenge: Reliable, high-touch service without sacrificing oversight
Large-scale transportation benefit programs carry real exposure to FWA, including ghost trips marked as completed when a member was never actually in the vehicle, suspicious repeated pairings between the same driver and member that could indicate coordinated misuse, excessive no-shows or cancellations, and unusually long appointment durations that may warrant investigation. Identifying and managing these real vulnerabilities requires oversight that can operate at the same scale as the program itself.
The core challenge was clear: Call the Car needed to deliver reliable, high-touch service while maintaining cost efficiency, safety and compliance, and operational visibility at scale––and that required a partner that could help improve reliability and oversight without disrupting service for members who depend on it.
The solution: A seamless transition to a scalable, trusted network
The priority from day one: zero disruption for members
What’s more, delivering reliable transportation for healthcare requires more than simply arranging a ride. Behind every successful trip is a complex operational network that must ensure consistent ride fulfillment across high-volume programs, reduce late pickups and cancellations, manage member no-shows, and maintain service quality across diverse demographics.
Existing infrastructure made the transition seamless
When administering transportation benefits at scale, organizations have an obligation to health plans and their members to ensure every dollar is being used appropriately. Safety and compliance aren’t just audit checkboxes—they’re fundamental to maintaining trust with customers.
A familiar foundation reduced friction for operations teams
That existing familiarity also shortened the learning curve for Call the Car's operations teams, and Uber Health provided dedicated resources to help troubleshoot throughout onboarding––support that mattered given the high volume the program manages.
The expanded partnership reflects a true collaborative model rather than a standard vendor relationship, built around close operational collaboration between Call the Car and Uber Health. The seamless implementation quickly translated into meaningful benefits for both members and program administrators, improving the rider experience while strengthening operational oversight.
A more connected experience for members
Additionally, because many members already have personal Uber accounts, the transition introduced little friction: for eligible members whose phone number is linked to an existing Uber account, trip-linking surfaces ride details directly within the Uber app they already know and trust. Alternatively, riders do not need the Uber app, a credit card, or a smartphone to benefit from rides requested via Uber Health.
Better visibility benefits members and administrators
Member experience improvements
Many Call the Car members already have personal Uber accounts, creating a familiar experience
Trip-linking enables members to view ride details directly within the Uber app
Real-time ride tracking provides greater transparency and reduces uncertainty
Improved visibility helps support appointment readiness and may contribute to fewer missed appointments or cancellations
Operational improvements
Strong focus on safety, compliance, and responsible stewardship of healthcare resources
Uber Health and Call the Car developed a tailored FWA monitoring framework to identify anomalous ride patterns, repeated driver-member pairings, excessive no-shows, and other indicators requiring review
Greater visibility into transportation operations to support stronger oversight and program integrity
The result is a more convenient, transparent, and scalable transportation model that strengthens both member experience and program integrity.
When transportation works, healthcare works. Call the Car came to this partnership with a clear, well-informed view of what their program needed, and we've valued the chance to build alongside them rather than simply serve as a vendor. That's what Uber Health aims to be for every healthcare organization we work with: core infrastructure that helps solve complex transportation challenges, so more members stay connected to the care they need.
– Jen Shepherd, Global Head of Uber Health
The impact: Improved reliability, experience, and fraud, waste, and abuse oversight at scale
A 99.5% fulfillment rate across nearly half a million monthly trips
Call the Car and Uber Health have helped strengthen access to transportation across California, supporting a 99.5% ride fulfillment rate across the state.
Working together, the transportation program has helped to:
Increase member readiness and engagement for appointments
Reduce transportation-related barriers to care
Maintain consistent on-time performance
Real-time visibility keeps the program moving
Notably, Uber Health helps to streamline operations through established integrations and workflows. For example, Uber Health’s API webhooks provide real-time ride status updates, giving care coordinators visibility into where a rider or vehicle is at any given moment. This enables Call the Car to quickly respond to "Where's my ride?" inquiries while documenting ride fulfillment and service performance.
Data-driven oversight strengthens program integrity
Strengthening program integrity and reducing fraud, waste, and abuse (FWA) has also been a critical component of the partnership. These capabilities help maintain a sustainable transportation program while building trust and confidence among health plan partners.
Through Uber's reporting and monitoring capabilities, Call the Car has gained greater visibility into transportation operations and an improved ability to identify potential misuse patterns. The framework tracks repeated pairings between the same driver and member, and surfaces as a flag worth investigating; members with consecutive no-shows or multiple cancellations are reviewed for any needed adjustments to benefit parameters; and appointments exceeding five hours, which can serve as a data-driven trigger to look more closely at whether a trip is legitimate.
Confidence built into every ride
The partnership also maintains strong safety standards, with accident rates consistent with expectations for transportation programs at scale. Altogether, these capabilities have given Call the Car's health plan customers greater confidence in the program's integrity.
Going forward: Building a more resilient model for healthcare transportation
Healthcare transportation is becoming core infrastructure
Transportation is increasingly recognized as critical healthcare infrastructure, not an operational afterthought. Ensuring reliable access requires more than moving people from point A to point B––it requires technology, operational excellence, and trusted partnerships that help patients stay connected to care.
A model built for access, performance, and trust
The Call the Car and Uber Health partnership demonstrates how reliability, scale, and technology can meaningfully improve outcomes in high-complexity NMT environments. By building on an existing relationship and prioritizing continuity, both organizations were able to transition successfully while strengthening performance, transparency, and oversight.
The result is a more resilient transportation model that supports:
- Better access to transportation to care-related appointments for vulnerable populations
- Stronger operational performance for brokers and health plans
- Enhanced program integrity and transparency at scale
A blueprint for the future of healthcare transportation
As demand for accountable, high-quality healthcare transportation continues to grow, the Call the Car and Uber Health partnership offers a blueprint for how technology and collaboration can help modernize healthcare logistics without compromising member experience or program integrity.
¹ Performance data and metrics are based on data provided by Call the Car and analyzed by the Call the Car team from January through July 2026. “Ride fulfillment rate” refers to the percentage of requested trips that were successfully fulfilled; “on-time rate” refers to the percentage of trips completed within Call the Car’s defined on-time window; and “no-show rate” refers to the percentage of scheduled trips in which the member did not appear for pickup. The approximately 25% reduction in member no-show rates reflects Call the Car’s comparison of no-show rates during the January–July 2026 period against its applicable prior-period baseline.
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