How to Provide RideCare Trips for HealthPartners in Minnesota in 2027

HealthPartners is a Minnesota health plan that serves Medical Assistance (Minnesota’s Medicaid) and MinnesotaCare members, along with seniors who have both Medicare and Medical Assistance. Its ride benefit is called RideCare. RideCare takes each ride request and picks the ride: a taxi, a bus, a volunteer driver, or a private medical transportation company. There is no outside broker, so a transportation company contracts with HealthPartners itself.

RideCare covers only HealthPartners members. Fee-for-service members and other plans’ members get their rides elsewhere, through counties, tribes, coordinators such as MTM Health and SmartLink, or their own plan, and each of those takes its own contract. The Minnesota guide shows how the pieces fit.

Who rides with RideCare

As of October 2026, RideCare serves these HealthPartners members at no cost to them:

• Prepaid Medical Assistance Program (PMAP). All members. HealthPartners calls this plan Families and Children.
• Minnesota Senior Care Plus (MSC+). All members. MSC+ is for Medical Assistance members age 65 and older.
• Minnesota Senior Health Options (MSHO). All members. MSHO combines Medicare and Medical Assistance for seniors.
• MinnesotaCare. Children under 19 and pregnant members only.

Members who have only a HealthPartners Medicare plan cannot use RideCare. HealthPartners’ 2026 provider manual for its state programs sets the counties. PMAP and MinnesotaCare cover Anoka, Benton, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Stearns, Washington, and Wright. MSC+ and MSHO cover the same 11 counties plus Sherburne.

Where rides go

RideCare takes members to doctor, dentist, mental health, urgent care, and specialty clinic visits. It takes members to primary care within 30 miles of where they live, work, or go to school, and to specialty care within 60 miles. A member with a confirmed prescription can ride on to the pharmacy after the appointment.

MSHO members can also ride to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, healthy aging (Juniper) classes, SilverSneakers activities, PowerUp cooking classes, and HealthPartners’ annual and stakeholder meetings. MSC+ members can ride to the annual and stakeholder meetings too. HealthPartners’ 2026 provider manual for its state programs lists rides to supplemental benefit services and to AA and NA meetings among the MSHO supplemental benefits for 2026, along with rides for caregivers to covered caregiver support services.

The 2026 member handbooks list the rides HealthPartners covers: ambulance, volunteer driver, unassisted (taxi or public transit), assisted, lift or ramp, protected transport, and stretcher. Leaving out ambulance, these are six of Minnesota’s seven ride modes (see level of service). The seventh, mileage paid to the member, is not covered: HealthPartners does not pay members for driving their own car, or for meals, lodging, or parking, and sends members to their county or tribe for those.

How RideCare books a ride and what reaches your company

Members call RideCare at 952-883-7400 or 1-888-288-1439 (TTY 711), Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. RideCare cannot take calls outside those hours. These are its booking rules as of October 2, 2026:

1. Scheduled visits. Call three to five days ahead.
2. Members who need mobility help. Call five to seven days ahead. RideCare coordinates rides for members who use wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, or stretchers.
3. Same-day visits. Call at least three hours ahead.
4. Urgent care and the emergency room. Call as soon as possible. For an emergency, members call 911.
5. What the member gives. The member ID number, name, home address, date of birth, phone number, the date and time of the appointment, and the address and phone number of the place they are going.

Members who opt in get a text confirmation and a reminder two days before the ride. They cancel by replying to either text or by calling RideCare, and they call RideCare to reschedule.

Extra stops have to be set up ahead. A member who needs the pharmacy after the doctor says so when booking, or calls RideCare to change the ride. When RideCare books private transportation such as a taxi, the member cannot add stops or make changes once the ride begins.

How the member gets home depends on the ride. A bus rider uses the return pass or bus card. A taxi rider calls the taxi company when ready to leave, using the number in the confirmation and reminder texts, and is picked up where they were dropped off. Plan your dispatch for those calls, and read up on will-call trips.

How to join the HealthPartners transportation network

The DHS contact list for health plans, updated October 1, 2026, tells NEMT companies to go to the Join the HealthPartners network page, choose Medical/Behavioral Health, and fill out and submit the form. Before you do, check three things.

Check the network status for your area

HealthPartners’ join page for medical providers links a list of closed specialties. The list, dated April 2024 and still linked as of October 2, 2026, shows Transportation as closed in the Twin Cities metro area and open outside it, in greater Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa. Closed means HealthPartners is not accepting contract requests from new providers in that specialty there.

A metro company can still send a contract inquiry for future reference, in case HealthPartners finds it needs more providers. A company that was turned down before can apply again with new information about its services or area. The list does not say which counties count as the metro, so ask Provider Relations and Network Management at 952-883-5589 where yours falls. See when a broker network is full.

Enroll with Minnesota Health Care Programs first

HealthPartners requires medical providers located in Minnesota, or in an Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, or Wisconsin county that borders Minnesota, to enroll with DHS before applying. In a notice of July 23, 2026, DHS extended its freeze on enrolling NEMT companies located in Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, and Washington counties to January 27, 2027. Companies located in other Minnesota counties can still enroll. See the metro enrollment freeze.

Hold a MnDOT special transportation certificate

Subdivision 18h of Minnesota Statutes section 256B.0625 holds any company driving health plan members to MnDOT’s special transportation service (STS) standards, found in sections 174.29 to 174.30 and Minnesota Rules chapter 8840. Only public transit, volunteers, and not-for-hire vehicles are exempt. MnDOT’s application steps warn that you cannot legally run STS rides until your certificate of compliance arrives, so finish that before you send HealthPartners an inquiry. The Minnesota guide walks through the steps.

Send the contract inquiry and follow the steps

HealthPartners’ Contract Process Overview for medical providers lays out what happens after you submit:

1. A network decision. Provider Relations and Network Management emails its decision, which can take three to four weeks. If it declines, it tells you.
2. Provider information. If the request moves ahead, HealthPartners asks for its Provider Information Document, a W-9, and a Disclosure of Ownership form, sent by email or by fax to 952-853-8848. It then decides whether to offer an agreement.
3. Credentialing, if it applies. HealthPartners reviews your roster and decides who needs credentialing. Its facility credentialing list covers hospitals, home health agencies, skilled nursing facilities, surgery centers, and behavioral health facilities.
4. The contract. HealthPartners sends the contract for signature and sets its effective date. This step can take 30 to 45 days, and a representative tells you when you may submit claims.

Have your DHS enrollment letter, NPI, STS certificate and certified vehicle list, insurance certificates, driver roster, and the counties you cover ready. Contracting with Medicaid health plans covers what to check in the agreement.

How HealthPartners pays for rides

Your rate comes from your HealthPartners contract. Subdivision 18h also makes health plans pay a fuel adjustment on NEMT rates when fuel costs more than $3 a gallon. That rule ends if federal approval is not received, and plan contracts must then let the plan take back the extra pay, up to the amount the adjustment added. A 2025 law repealed subdivision 18h, but a 2026 law (chapter 121, article 3, section 62) holds the repeal until the statewide administrator starts. Ask HealthPartners how your contract figures the adjustment and when it can be taken back.

Compare any offer with the state’s fee-for-service rates. Subdivision 17 sets base rates of $19.80 plus $1.70 a mile for a lift or ramp ride and $60 plus $2.40 a mile for a stretcher ride, and the 2026 law keeps them in place until the administrator starts. DHS moves the mileage rate 1 percent for every 10 cents Minnesota gas sits above $3 a gallon, checked each quarter. See Minnesota NEMT rates for the current figures.

HealthPartners’ 2026 claims manual and quick claims guide set the billing rules:

• Electronic claims. Minnesota Statutes section 62J.536 requires providers who can bill Medical Assistance to send claims electronically in the standard format. Use HealthPartners payer ID 94267 through your clearinghouse.
• Deadlines. Your contract sets how long you have to file after the date of service. See timely filing limits.
• Payment time. Minnesota law requires health plans to pay or deny a clean claim within 30 calendar days of receiving it, and HealthPartners pays interest on late clean claims without a separate bill.
• Attachments, adjustments, and appeals. For State of Minnesota assistance products, mail them to HealthPartners, PO Box 21662, Eagan, MN 55121, or fax 952-883-7666.

What changes when Minnesota hires one NEMT administrator

Minnesota Statutes section 256B.0625, subdivision 18i, tells DHS to contract with a statewide or regional administrator for NEMT, and that contract must include rides for health plan members. A law signed May 27, 2026 (Laws 2026, chapter 121) requires DHS to give counties and health plans six months of notice before the administrator starts. As of October 1, 2026, the DHS contact list still sends HealthPartners rides to HealthPartners. The administrator delay story has the details.

Who to contact at HealthPartners

For	Contact
RideCare ride line	952-883-7400 or 1-888-288-1439 (TTY 711), weekdays 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Contracting and network questions	Provider Relations and Network Management, 952-883-5589
Contract paperwork by fax	952-853-8848
Claims helpline	952-883-7699 or 888-663-6464
Claim attachments and appeals	PO Box 21662, Eagan, MN 55121, fax 952-883-7666
Member Services, PMAP, MinnesotaCare, MSC+	952-967-7998 or 1-866-885-8880

Each Minnesota health plan is a separate contract. Blue Plus runs a similar ride program, BlueRide, and Medica lists its own transportation contacts.