Banner University Family Care Transportation: Booking Rules, Extra Riders, and How Ride Companies Get Trips

Banner University Family Care is Banner Health’s AHCCCS plan, with 209,736 Complete Care (ACC) members in September 2026, down from 231,627 a year before. It also runs an ALTCS plan for members who are elderly or physically disabled, with 6,362 members plus 537 with a serious mental illness. Both plans cover the same ten counties, from Maricopa and Pima to Yuma, La Paz, and Cochise. Provider type 28 registration, the ADOT Vehicle for Hire permit, and the AHCCCS fee schedule are statewide, and the Arizona guide covers them.

How Banner members book a ride

Banner members book rides through Banner’s own Customer Care Center. Complete Care members call 800-582-8686 and ALTCS members call 833-318-4146, TTY 711 for both, and pick the transportation option. Staff answer weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and an answering service takes calls after hours. Banner’s Complete Care page tells members to ask a friend, family member, or neighbor first, and its handbook covers rides for members who cannot provide, secure, or pay for their own transportation.

Members call at least 72 hours before the visit, and Banner’s ride pages warn that same-day rides may not be available because vehicles are limited in every county. When a member cancels a doctor or dental visit, the 2027 handbook asks them to cancel the ride too, 24 to 72 hours ahead. A late cancellation lands on your schedule as an empty slot, so see how to reduce no-shows.

Two Banner rules shape which trips reach you:

• Weekend and holiday urgent care. On weekends and holidays, a member who is sick can call Customer Care for a taxi ride to an urgent care center. Banner will not book any ride to an emergency room; members call 911.
• Behavioral health. Banner provides the ride to a member’s first behavioral health intake. After that, the member’s behavioral health provider helps with a bus pass or another ride, so those trips may come from the clinic, not from Banner (see behavioral health transportation).

What the call center records about the rider

The handbook tells members to give Customer Care their AHCCCS ID, the visit’s date, time, and address, one way or round trip, and their travel needs: wheelchair, stretcher, oxygen, IVs, someone traveling with them, an extra-wide or electric wheelchair, or a high-top vehicle. Those notes are what tell a dispatcher which van fits the rider. If a trip arrives without them and the rider needs a larger vehicle, report it before you roll.

From October 1, 2026, AHCCCS Policy 310-BB lets any plan ask for no more than three calendar days of notice and requires exceptions for dialysis, chemotherapy, discharges, and other urgent care. The MTM Arizona page compares how each plan words its notice rule.

Extra passengers and car seats

Banner allows the member and one extra passenger on each trip. On Complete Care trips, more than one extra person may ride when that person is a minor, is under the member’s care and supervision, or has a medical condition. Banner’s ALTCS page allows it for a minor in the member’s care or a person with a medical condition. A member who is a single caregiver with more than one minor child may bring the other children along.

So a single Banner trip can carry more than two riders. Banner itself notes that not all vehicles can carry more than three passengers, and Policy 310-BB says no vehicle may carry more passengers than the maker’s seating capacity. Before you accept a family trip, check the rider count against the seats.

Car seats work differently in the two plans:

• Complete Care. Children under 5 need a car seat, and Banner does not provide one. The member brings it.
• ALTCS. Banner’s ALTCS ride page asks members to call 72 hours or more ahead when car seats are needed for extra passengers.

For the safety rules on young riders, see child passengers in NEMT, and for adult companions, escorts and caregivers.

Timing and trip limits

Banner’s 2027 handbook and its 2026 provider manual set the same time window. A member may arrive up to one hour before the appointment, waits no more than one hour after it for the ride home, and is never picked up before the visit ends. Build your return times around the end of the visit, and treat open returns as will-call trips.

Pharmacy rides carry a distance limit in Maricopa and Pima counties. For members who live in Maricopa or Pima County, a pharmacy trip is covered only within 15 miles one way of the pickup. A compounding or specialty pharmacy farther away needs Banner’s approval, and a pharmacy inside an MSIC or an IHS or 638 facility is exempt. Members in Banner’s other eight counties have no 15-mile limit. See pharmacy stops for how a stop on the way home is handled.

Who arranges Banner’s rides

Banner’s 2027 Complete Care handbook and its 2026 provider manual name no ride vendor. The provider manual lists both “Non-Emergency Transportation Vendor” and “Transportation Companies” among the organizations Banner credentials.

Banner’s provider site does point clinics to MTM Health. Its MTM Link page sends clinics to MTM’s portal to request, change, and cancel members’ rides and to see where the driver is, with a reference guide dated August 2024. MTM’s community outreach team in Arizona trains clinic staff on it. The MTM Arizona page explains how MTM runs plan rides across the state.

Because the documents stop short of naming a vendor, ask Banner Provider Contracting in writing which network sends the trips you want before you plan staff around them.

How a ride company gets Banner trips

Banner’s manual lists transportation companies among the organizations it credentials itself, so apply to Banner and to MTM, and let each tell you where you fit.

1. Register with AHCCCS. Banner’s contracting tips say it is not responsible for paying providers who are not registered with AHCCCS. Provider type 28 registration, with its site visit, fingerprints, and fee, is in the Arizona guide.
2. Fill out Banner’s Provider Interest Form. It sits on the Banner Health Network site, linked from Banner’s Providers Seeking Contract page.
3. Attach the AzAHP Organizational/Facility Application, and only after AHCCCS registration is complete. Without the documents on its first page, Banner cannot make a contracting decision. For a transportation company that means the state and business licenses that apply, current insurance policies, a W-9 or IRS Form 941 voucher, a vehicle maintenance schedule, and proof of age-appropriate car seats. Each location needs its own application, and Banner posts a version with the mandatory fields highlighted. The insurance limits the application asks for are on the Mercy Care page.
4. Apply to MTM Health’s network on its Join Our Network page, naming the Banner counties and vehicle types you cover.
5. Wait, then follow up. Banner asks you to allow 120 days before you ask about a new contract’s status. Then email BPAProviderContracting@bannerhealth.com with your organization’s name and tax ID. Sending a form does not guarantee a contract.
6. Finish credentialing. Banner’s FAQ says credentialing and loading take up to 60 days after a complete, clean AzAHP form, and the provider manual allows up to 90 days. Banner returns the executed contract once it is loaded, and you recredential at least every 36 months. The application says members may not be seen until you hold written confirmation of your effective date and your AHCCCS registration is complete, so do not take Banner trips before then.

After you are in, tell Banner Provider Contracting at least 30 days before any change to your tax ID, services, or legal name. For how plan contracts work in general, see contracting with Medicaid health plans.

Billing Banner directly

Under the 2026 provider manual, a transportation company billing Banner uses the CMS 1500. Claims are due within 120 days of the date of service unless your contract sets another deadline. Banner decides clean claims within 45 days of receipt. Proof that you filed on time must tie to the claim itself: a fax confirmation, a certified mail receipt, or a clearinghouse report counts, and your own billing history does not. The manual’s workforce training requirement for Complete Care providers lists transportation providers among its exceptions.

Banner Medicare Advantage Dual rides

Banner Medicare Advantage Dual is Banner’s plan for people with both Medicare and AHCCCS (see dual eligible). Its 2026 and 2027 summaries of benefits add 36 one-way trips a year at no cost, by rideshare, van, or medical transport, but only to extra-benefit places that Medicare and AHCCCS do not cover: chiropractic, dental, hearing, podiatry, and vision providers, over-the-counter and food benefits, fitness centers, and other plan-approved places. Each one-way trip may run no more than 50 miles. Members book them at 877-874-3930, TTY 711, three business days ahead. The same summaries list medically necessary non-emergency rides at no cost under the member’s AHCCCS coverage.

Who to call

For	Contact
A Complete Care member’s ride	Customer Care, 800-582-8686, transportation option
An ALTCS member’s ride	Customer Care, 833-318-4146, transportation option
A Banner Dual extra-benefit ride	877-874-3930, three business days ahead
Contract status or documents	BPAProviderContracting@bannerhealth.com, with your tax ID
MTM Link training for clinics	MTM community outreach, co-az@mtm-inc.net (August 2024 guide)