Verida in Louisiana: Fee-for-Service Medicaid Rides (2027)

Verida, Inc., the Villa Rica, Georgia broker that used to be called Southeastrans, authorizes and pays for the Louisiana Medicaid rides that fall outside the Healthy Louisiana health plans. Louisiana’s Medicaid Services Manual, chapter 10, with NEMT sections issued July 14, 2025, sets its rules. The state’s licensing, plates, and plan side are in the Louisiana state guide, and Verida’s other states are on the Verida broker page. This page covers Verida’s Louisiana work: which riders it carries, who gets its trips first, how to join, and how it pays.

Which Louisiana riders Verida carries

Both of Louisiana’s Medicaid manuals print the same chart of who pays for each kind of ride, and they flag the fee-for-service boxes Verida approves and pays:

• Non-ambulance rides for members in the populations excluded from managed care.
• Non-emergency ambulance trips for those members and for adults who live in an ICF/IID, an intermediate care facility for people with intellectual disabilities.

Everyone enrolled in a Healthy Louisiana plan rides through the plan, including members enrolled only for behavioral health, and the plans book through MediTrans. Nursing homes and ICF/IIDs cover their residents’ non-ambulance rides in their daily rate, so those trips go to neither broker. Verida’s member page says it arranges rides for every fee-for-service member living in Louisiana.

Verida’s Louisiana work got smaller in 2025. AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana told providers on September 26, 2025 that Verida would stop its rides on October 31, 2025, and MediTrans began them the next day. A company that drove AmeriHealth Caritas trips through Verida needed a MediTrans contract to keep them. See when a broker changes.

Who gets a Verida trip first

Louisiana pays for the least costly ride that fits the rider. Since November 20, 2025, LAC 50:XXVII.505 has the broker weigh four kinds of providers in this order:

1. Public transit.
2. Gas reimbursement drivers, such as a friend or relative.
3. Traditional providers, for-profit and non-profit companies enrolled in Medicaid.
4. Rideshare companies enrolled in Medicaid. See Louisiana adds rideshare.

The fee-for-service manual issued July 14, 2025 still lists non-profit providers ahead of for-profit ones. The November 2025 rule puts both in one group, so within it the least costly company that fits the rider comes first. Non-profit, in Louisiana’s rule, means a provider run by or tied to a public body, such as a parish, a community action agency, or a parish Council on Aging, and a company that is a nonprofit under IRS rules must enroll as one. See running a nonprofit NEMT.

Verida’s transit and gas programs

Verida runs the first two options itself. Its public transportation program, on a flyer posted in December 2022, gives bus and paratransit trips to members who live within half a mile of a transit line, for single trips, round trips, and standing orders. Its gas reimbursement program mails the friend or relative a check once the medical provider signs to confirm the visit, and the state fee schedule pays gas reimbursement at 36 cents a mile (code A0090).

The manual caps a gas reimbursement driver at five named members, or one whole household, across Verida and all the plans, and the driver may not live at the rider’s address. Under the November 2025 rule, someone who drives more must enroll as a traditional provider and meet the for-profit requirements. Verida pays one gas claim per trip however many people ride, and sends each gas driver an IRS Form 1099.

Where your company sits in line

When more than one company meets the least costly standard, the manual has Verida send the trip to one whose primary service region, listed on its Disclosure of Ownership form, is the LDH administrative region where the rider lives and that can meet the travel and wait time standards. Verida may send it out of region only when it documents that no willing company in the region can meet the time standards, or that the outside company costs less. Riders may choose their company when costs are equal, though never a rideshare company. A company that keeps turning down local trips for long ones can lose trips. List your region with care on the disclosure of ownership form.

How to join Verida in Louisiana

Verida’s Louisiana provider page lists two steps. Send the Request for Qualifications form with a driver list and a vehicle list. If your region needs another provider, Verida calls you for an interview and asks for a current business license, proof of liability insurance, driver credentials, criminal background checks for all drivers, drug screens for all owners and drivers, and a driving record for each driver.

As of October 2, 2026, the new provider link on that page opens a notice that Verida has no room to add companies in your area, with a request to check back later in the year. The Request for Qualifications form still lists Louisiana as a state. If you apply anyway, keep your file current so you can move when a region opens, and read what to do when a broker network is full.

Insurance and drivers

Verida asks for insurers rated A- or better, every vehicle listed on the auto policy, and coverage for all owned, hired, and non-owned vehicles, and says your provider relations manager gives the detailed limits. Louisiana’s floor for traditional providers, in LAC 50:XXVII.517 as amended November 20, 2025, is $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 property damage, or a $300,000 combined single limit. The manual also requires LDH to be listed as an additional insured on your auto and general liability policies. A company that runs below the minimum can have LDH take back every payment for trips in that period.

Verida’s trips follow the fee-for-service manual, which bars a driver with three or more moving violations, or any conviction for driving while intoxicated, in the past three years. MediTrans’s plan trips follow the stricter managed care manual, which allows no more than two moving violations in three years and bars any driver ever convicted of driving under the influence. The state guide lists the background check, drug screen, and training rules both share.

Staying credentialed

The manual bars Verida from assigning trips to a company that falls short of the requirements, and from paying for any date it was out of compliance. Tell Verida before you add a vehicle and send its registration and insurance certificate, with the parish permit if it will run in New Orleans or Jefferson Parish, so Verida can inspect it first.

How riders book, and what reaches your schedule

Fee-for-service members book with Verida at 855-325-7626, option 1, Monday to Friday from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central. Verida asks them to book at least three business days ahead and lets them book up to 30 business days out. The manual expects 48 hours of notice and bars Verida from refusing an urgent ride, such as dialysis, chemotherapy, radiation, or opioid treatment, only because the notice was short.

Verida tells members the ride may be shared, that they may bring one bag that fits on their lap, and that one adult escort may come when they need help for a medical reason, booked with the trip. Riders under 17 travel with a parent or guardian. You may refuse to carry children who come along, and nobody may charge for an extra passenger. Members call Where’s My Ride, option 2, once they have waited more than 15 minutes past the pickup time.

Standing orders cover recurring care such as dialysis, chemotherapy, opioid treatment, and wound care. When more than one company meets the cost test, Verida should keep a standing order with the same company, and it reviews each one at least once a calendar month to confirm it is still the least costly choice. A hospital discharge is picked up within three hours of the facility’s notice, or two hours after the scheduled discharge time, whichever is later. Out-of-state trips need Verida’s approval first. See NEMT standing orders and hospital discharge rides.

What Verida pays and how to bill it

Your rate is in your Verida agreement. The manual sets the floor at the published fee-for-service rate on the date of service, unless your agreement says otherwise. On the schedule effective October 1, 2025, with mileage counted from mile zero:

• Ambulatory (T2003): $13.50 per trip leg plus $1.10 a mile, a rate in place since January 1, 2022.
• Wheelchair van (A0130): $21.50 per trip leg plus $1.30 a mile, also since January 1, 2022. A 12-mile leg pays $21.50 plus $15.60, or $37.10.
• Door-through-door wheelchair, called ELOC (A0130): $31.50 per trip leg plus $1.30 a mile since October 1, 2025. Each rider needs an extra prior approval of medical need under LAC 50:XXVII.503.

Act 969 of the 2026 Regular Session tells LDH to set a minimum of $14.50 a trip and $2.10 a mile, but only once the Legislature funds it. Until then the October 2025 schedule stands.

Send ground claims to Verida within 365 days of the date of service. Verida must take them electronically and may not require paper. Before it pays, it matches each claim to your electronic daily trip log, which holds the trip ID, the rider’s name, Medicaid ID, address, and signature, the destination, departure and arrival times, the driver, and the VIN. A scheduled trip where nobody rode is not billable, and the manual requires Verida to keep a no-show protocol, so ask for it in writing. Use a trip log and see how to bill NEMT brokers.

Ambulance trips through Verida

Verida pays a non-emergency ambulance trip for its riders only with a Certification of Ambulance Transportation (CAT) on file or sent with the claim. The treating physician, a registered nurse, a nursing facility’s director of nursing, a nurse practitioner, a physician assistant, or a clinical nurse specialist signs it, and one CAT covers up to 180 days. A trip may be booked through Verida or directly with the ambulance company, which then checks eligibility and the CAT itself. See NEMT vs ambulance.

When a claim or trip goes wrong

Start with Verida’s claims line, 678-510-4600, press 2. Verida’s Louisiana page also links LDH’s Informational Bulletin 21-02, but that bulletin covers health plan trips, and R.S. 46:460.81, the law behind Louisiana’s outside claims review, applies to decisions by managed care organizations. For a fee-for-service problem Verida does not fix, write to LDH’s Bureau of Health Services Financing transportation staff at MedicaidTransportation@la.gov, or call 225-342-9566 or 225-333-7473, the contacts the manual lists. Verida’s provider page also has a complaint form. See escalating broker problems.

Who to call at Verida in Louisiana

As of October 2026:

For	Contact
Transportation providers	225-726-2800
Claims	678-510-4600, press 2
Louisiana state director	Steve Buckner, 404-307-2074, sbuckner@verida.com
Member rides	855-325-7626, option 1
Where’s My Ride	855-325-7626, option 2
Gas reimbursement	225-726-2796, LouisianaGR@verida.com
Public transit program	225-726-2796, LAPublicTransit@verida.com
LDH transportation staff	225-342-9566, MedicaidTransportation@la.gov

What to do first

1. Call 225-726-2800 and ask whether your region and vehicle type have room now.
2. Send the Request for Qualifications with full driver and vehicle lists, even while the network is full.
3. Fill out your Disclosure of Ownership form with the region where you want trips.
4. Hire to the stricter plan driver rule if you also want MediTrans trips.
5. Set up an electronic trip log that captures every field Verida matches before it pays.