Anthem Blue Cross Medi-Cal Transportation: Modivcare Rides Across 16 Counties

Anthem Blue Cross holds Medi-Cal contracts in 15 California counties: San Francisco and Santa Clara in the Bay Area, Sacramento, five San Joaquin Valley counties from Madera to Kern, and seven counties in the Sierra foothills and the Eastern Sierra. It also serves Los Angeles County as one of L.A. Care’s plan partners. DHCS counted 745,127 Anthem Medi-Cal members in those 15 counties in August 2026, and Modivcare coordinates their rides. How Medi-Cal enrollment and van rules work statewide is in the California guide. The plans Modivcare serves besides Anthem are listed on Modivcare in California.

Who arranges Anthem Medi-Cal rides

Anthem’s Medi-Cal provider manual, effective July 1, 2026, says Anthem contracted with Modivcare to coordinate transportation for its Medi-Cal members across California. The manual gives Modivcare three jobs:

• Reservations. It takes ride requests from members, facilities, and medical groups.
• The network. It contracts with the ground transportation companies that drive the trips.
• Payment. It pays those companies’ non-emergency ground transportation claims.

For a van company, that settles who you deal with. Your contract, your trip assignments, and your payments all come from Modivcare, not from Anthem. Emergency ambulance calls stay outside the arrangement.

Members book on 1-877-931-4755, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific time, and Modivcare’s California facility page lists the same line for Anthem. Anthem’s member page tells members to request both medical and non-medical rides through their doctor first.

In Los Angeles County, Blue Cross of California is contracted with L.A. Care to provide Medi-Cal, and the manual’s Modivcare arrangement covers Anthem’s Medi-Cal members anywhere in California. So an Anthem member in Los Angeles books on the same line, and Modivcare arranges the ride. DHCS’s county count has no separate Anthem row for Los Angeles County. For L.A. Care itself, see L.A. Care transportation, and for the county and city van permits, the Los Angeles County page.

Where Anthem Medi-Cal members live

DHCS’s managed care enrollment report, published September 11, 2026, gives Anthem’s August 2026 members county by county, next to the other plans in each county.

County	Anthem members	Other Medi-Cal plans there
Sacramento	229,331	Health Net 132,562, Kaiser 131,742, Molina 62,036
Fresno	136,638	CalViva Health 321,186, Kaiser 12,721
Tulare	134,551	Health Net 130,284, Kaiser 162
Santa Clara	61,905	Santa Clara Family Health Plan 279,599, Kaiser 51,326
Kern	46,293	Kern Health Systems 374,794, Kaiser 23,870
San Francisco	37,822	San Francisco Health Plan 154,743, Kaiser 23,112
El Dorado	24,438	Mountain Valley Health Plan 7,237, Kaiser 4,092
Madera	24,393	CalViva Health 47,685, Kaiser 2,141
Kings	24,373	CalViva Health 37,112, Kaiser 286
Tuolumne	7,771	Health Net 5,905
Calaveras	6,784	Health Net 5,559
Amador	6,166	Health Net 1,808, Kaiser 424
Inyo	2,613	Health Net 1,708
Mono	1,846	Health Net 1,068
Alpine	203	Mountain Valley Health Plan 40
All 15 counties	745,127

Four patterns in that table decide where Anthem work pays off:

• Ten counties where one application reaches most members. Modivcare’s California page also lists ride lines for Health Net, CalViva Health, and San Francisco Health Plan. In Fresno, Kings, Madera, Tulare, San Francisco, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mono, and Tuolumne, the other non-Kaiser plan is one of those. Some Health Net medical groups book their own rides, as the Health Net Medi-Cal page explains.
• Tulare. DHCS classes Anthem as Tulare County’s local initiative plan and Health Net as the commercial plan, and the two are almost the same size.
• Kern and Santa Clara. Anthem is the smaller plan. Kern Health Systems is eight times larger and Santa Clara Family Health Plan more than four times larger, so ask each of them who arranges their rides before you plan a fleet around Anthem alone.
• The foothills and the Eastern Sierra. Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Inyo, Mono, and Tuolumne hold 49,821 Anthem members between them. Trips there can run long, and Anthem gives long-distance trips 10 business days of notice. See rural NEMT and long-distance medical transport.

The county list changed in January 2024. DHCS’s counts show Anthem in 28 counties in December 2023 and in 15 a month later. It started in Kern and left Alameda, Butte, Colusa, Contra Costa, Glenn, Mariposa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Benito, Sierra, Sutter, Tehama, and Yuba. DHCS shows no Anthem members in any of them in August 2026, so Medi-Cal trips there come through other plans.

How much notice comes with an Anthem trip

Anthem’s provider manual, effective July 1, 2026, sets how far ahead each kind of trip reaches you:

Trip	Notice the member gives
Routine ride	5 business days
A new rider’s first ride	7 business days, on Anthem’s member page as of January 2026
Long-distance trip	10 business days
Urgent appointment for dialysis, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, urgent care, or wound care	None
Facility discharge	None. Modivcare asks hospitals to call at least 2 hours ahead when they can.

For a small company, routine Anthem trips arrive a week or more ahead, which leaves room to group them into routes. The short-notice calls are the urgent treatments and discharges, so decide in advance how many of those your vans can absorb.

Dialysis and other recurring care can run on a Modivcare standing order instead of trip by trip, once the rider’s Anthem PCS is on file. The form and its fax number are on Modivcare in California. See also NEMT standing orders and dialysis transportation.

The Anthem PCS form

Anthem’s manual requires a Physician Certification Statement (PCS) before a member can use NEMT, and asks the prescriber to return it to Modivcare within two business days of receiving it. Anthem’s own form, CABC-CD-014831-22 dated January 2023, goes to Modivcare Utilization Review by fax at 877-457-3352 or by email at CAExceptions@modivcare.com. Modivcare does that review for Anthem.

• How long it lasts. No more than 12 months, with start and end dates on the form.
• Who can sign. The member’s physician or a physician extender: a physician assistant, nurse practitioner, certified nurse midwife, physical, speech, or occupational therapist, or a mental health or substance use disorder provider. A discharge planner employed or supervised by the hospital, facility, or physician’s office can also sign, so a hospital can certify a discharge ride itself.
• Ambulance. The form covers non-emergency ambulance only from one facility to another or from a facility to home.
• Gurney and wheelchair vans. Page 2 gives the criteria for each mode. It names dialysis recipients, members with paraplegia or severe mental confusion, and oxygen users who need no monitoring as wheelchair van riders. See stretcher vans.

The mode on the form is the mode you drive. Modivcare’s California Utilization Department answers PCS questions at 866-666-8645. See NEMT medical necessity forms.

How your company gets Anthem trips

1. Enroll in Medi-Cal through PAVE. The California guide covers the application, the fee, and the van rules DHCS checks.
2. Apply to Modivcare’s California network. Send the Become a Transportation Provider form with CA as your state and your base county. Modivcare checks PASS wheelchair training, first aid and CPR, defensive driving, drug screens, driving records, background checks, and vehicle registration. It asks for general liability, sexual abuse and molestation, auto, and workers comp coverage. The Modivcare guide walks through the form.
3. Pick your counties from the table. Mark where your base can reach members, and note which other plans run there.
4. Visit the CBAS centers. Anthem’s manual lists rides between the member’s home and the center among the services a Community-Based Adult Services center provides, so ask each center how it runs them. The Department of Aging’s CBAS list for September 30, 2026 shows 10 centers in San Francisco (2 of them temporarily closed), 7 in Fresno, 5 in Kern, 5 in Santa Clara, 4 in Sacramento, 2 in Tulare, 1 in Madera, and none in Kings, Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, El Dorado, Inyo, Mono, or Tuolumne. See adult day care transportation.
5. Hand clinics the fax numbers. Give dialysis centers and doctors’ offices the PCS fax, 877-457-3352, and Modivcare’s facility line for standing orders, 866-529-2128, so a rider’s PCS is on file before the first ride is booked.

Anthem’s manual says continuity-of-care protections do not extend to NEMT and NMT providers, so a rider who joins Anthem cannot keep an out-of-network ride company. Join Modivcare’s network before you count on those trips.

Your pay on Anthem trips is set in your Modivcare contract, not by Anthem. Compare it with the Medi-Cal fee-for-service maximums in the California guide before you sign, and see negotiating broker rates. Where Kern Health Systems, Santa Clara Family Health Plan, or Molina also run, see working with more than one broker.