Fidelis Care Transportation: Which Rides Go Through MAS and Which Fidelis Still Pays

Fidelis Care is New York’s largest Medicaid health plan, with 1,338,897 mainstream Medicaid members in the state’s August 2026 count and members in every county. Almost none of their rides are Fidelis’s to arrange. New York moved mainstream managed care rides to its transportation manager on December 1, 2015, and managed long term care rides on March 1, 2024, so Medical Answering Services (MAS), the state’s broker, books and approves them and Medicaid pays through eMedNY. The New York guide covers that system. This page sorts out which Fidelis trips still touch Fidelis, and where you bill each one.

Who arranges each Fidelis plan’s rides

For a Medicaid member, the answer is MAS in every county. Rockland County was the last exception, and it ended on April 1, 2026, as the Fidelis Rockland story explains. The other Fidelis plans sort out like this, from Fidelis’s April 2026 transportation manual, its member handbooks, its 2026 Essential Plan and 2023 Child Health Plus contracts, and the 2026 Wellcare plan documents:

Fidelis plan	Routine rides	What Fidelis pays for
Medicaid Managed Care and HealthierLife (HARP)	MAS books, Medicaid pays	No rides, in any county
Fidelis Care at Home (MLTC)	MAS books, Medicaid pays	Adult day care rides the center provides
Wellcare Fidelis Dual Align (Medicaid Advantage Plus)	MAS books, Medicaid pays	Adult day care rides and needed ambulance trips
Wellcare Fidelis Dual Liberty Sync and Dual Access	MAS books, Medicaid pays, for members with full Medicaid	Medically needed ambulance trips
Wellcare Fidelis Assist, Simple, and Patriot Simple	Not covered	Medically needed ambulance trips
Essential Plan 3 and 4	MAS books	Ambulance transfers between facilities
Essential Plan 1 and 2, and Ambetter	Not covered	Ambulance transfers between facilities
Child Health Plus	Not covered	Emergency ambulance and emergency transfers

Plan names shift from document to document. The April 2026 manual calls the Medicaid Advantage Plus plan Wellcare Fidelis Dual Plus, its 2026 handbook calls it Dual Align, and the 2027 summary of benefits calls it Dual Align Unity. Whatever name is on the member’s card, a routine ride goes through MAS.

A few details matter at the door:

• Wellcare Medicare plans. The 2026 summaries of benefits for Assist, Simple, Patriot Simple, and Dual Liberty Sync each list non-emergency medical transportation as not covered. None of the eight 2027 summaries Fidelis has posted adds a plan ride. The 2026 Dual Liberty Sync and 2027 Dual Access plans also enroll members whose Medicaid pays only their Medicare costs (QMB), and those members get no Medicaid ride either. A Wellcare member without full Medicaid is a private pay customer.
• Essential Plan. The 2026 Essential Plan 3 contract’s ambulance section excludes ambulette, van, and taxi rides, but its added benefits section gives members rides by personal vehicle, bus, taxi, ambulette, or public transit, booked through MAS. Fidelis’s April 2026 manual gives 1-800-850-5340 for Essential Plan members outside New York City, while MAS’s contact page and the state’s county list give 866-932-7740 for every upstate county. Fidelis says Essential Plan 200-250 ended on June 30, 2026, because of changes in federal rules.
• Undocumented members 65 and over. Fidelis’s Medicaid handbook, revised in September 2025, says non-emergency transportation is not covered for them.

Rides Fidelis still pays for

Social adult day care rides

This is the one regular van work Fidelis pays for. When rides left managed long term care on March 1, 2024, the Department of Health’s FAQ let day centers that already ran their own transportation keep it and keep billing their plan. Since January 1, 2025, Fidelis’s manual says, every social adult day care center manages its own rides, with its own vehicles or a transportation company it contracts with directly. The ride stays a plan benefit.

So the contract is with the day center. The center bills Fidelis, and you are paid under your agreement with the center. Fidelis Care at Home had 16,375 members in the state’s August 2026 managed long term care count. Its Medicaid Advantage Plus handbook gives the same rule for Wellcare Fidelis Dual Align members, and lists adult and social day care among services that need approval first. A ride from the center to a doctor is still a MAS trip. See adult day care transportation for how to price a center route.

Ambulance trips

The rest of what Fidelis pays for is ambulance work:

• Essential Plan. Fidelis covers non-emergency ambulance transfers between facilities, with prior authorization, when the member’s condition needs an ambulance and other transport could endanger their health.
• Ambetter. A non-emergency ambulance transfer qualifies when it goes from a non-participating to a participating hospital, to a hospital with a higher level of care, to a more cost-effective acute care facility, or from acute care to a subacute setting.
• Wellcare plans. Non-emergency ambulance trips need authorization for medical necessity, except hospital discharges and facility transfers. Medicare covers them only to set places, such as a hospital, a skilled nursing facility, the member’s home, or a dialysis facility for a member with end-stage renal disease.

Leftover manifest rules

The manual still describes trips Fidelis hands out itself: a manifest by email or fax at 4 p.m. each day, re-routing calls by 6 p.m. the day before, trips booked up to a month ahead, and same-day rides for urgent visits when Fidelis asks. Companies must meet Article 19-A of the Vehicle and Traffic Law and Part 6 of the DMV commissioner’s regulations. The same manual lists no Medicaid ride Fidelis arranges after April 1, 2026, so ask Fidelis provider relations what, if anything, still comes that way before you plan around it.

How to bill Fidelis for a ride it covers

Fidelis pays only claims billed with New York Medicaid procedure codes, at the rate New York Medicaid sets. The New York fee schedule guide lists those rates. The manual’s claim rules:

1. Use the right form. Most companies bill on the CMS-1500. Hospital-based ambulance companies and some day care centers may use the UB-04.
2. Send it electronically if you can. Fidelis’s receiver ID is 113153422 and its payer ID is 11315, and Availity Essentials takes first-time claims. The EDI team is at hipaa-edi_team@fideliscare.org. If you send more than 200 claims a month, call 1-888-FIDELIS about other options.
3. Count units Fidelis’s way. Enter 1 for a one-way trip, 2 for a round trip, 3 for a second stop at the provider’s office, and 4 for two round trips on one day, then the total miles. For several trips by one member on one day, add the trips and miles together and bill one line for the total miles.
4. Add the ZIP codes. Paper claims need the pickup ZIP code in box 32A and the drop-off ZIP code in 32B. A valid generic ICD-10 code is accepted when you do not know the exact diagnosis.
5. File within 90 days. Fidelis takes a late claim only for litigation, a primary insurer’s delay, a retroactive eligibility decision, or a rejection for a reason other than timely filing, with proof.
6. Correct within 60 days of the remittance advice. After that, Fidelis treats the claim as accepted. Send a corrected claim electronically with frequency code 7 and the original claim number, or on paper to Attn: Corrected Claims, Fidelis Care, 480 CrossPoint Pkwy., Getzville, NY 14068.

Remittance advices, claim status, appeals, and authorization checks are in Provider Access Online. Fidelis offers direct deposit to participating providers that have billed electronically for at least two months, among other conditions.

Getting Fidelis members’ trips through MAS

Because MAS books every Fidelis Medicaid ride, your Fidelis volume depends on your standing with MAS, not with Fidelis. To join, you get a MAS letter of support, enroll with New York Medicaid, and sign the MAS contract, as the MAS provider guide lays out. MAS says the state’s enrollment decision can take 90 days or longer, so start before you plan on Fidelis volume. Fidelis’s network page, as of October 2026, takes requests only from primary care providers, specialists, and health care facilities.

Where Fidelis members live tells you where that volume sits. In the August 2026 count, Fidelis had 515,340 members in New York City, second there to Healthfirst’s 925,947. In Rockland County it had 89,840 of the 120,961 managed care members, about three in four, so the April 2026 move covered most of the county’s managed care riders. It also had 68,188 in Suffolk, 59,545 in Nassau, 54,927 in Erie, 46,994 in Orange, and 41,446 in Onondaga. In Delaware, Schuyler, and Steuben counties, it is the only mainstream plan. For the livery and paratransit licenses New York City trips need, see the New York City page.

Before you bill, check eligibility. The state’s policy manual says that when a member’s plan includes transportation, eMedNY denies the claim and you bill the plan. Since April 1, 2026, that no longer happens for any Fidelis Medicaid member, so a denial that points to Fidelis is worth a call to eMedNY at 800-343-9000. Fidelis tells its members to book with MAS the same day for urgent visits, 3 days ahead for routine ones, 5 days for public transit, and 7 days for long-distance travel.

Who to call

• MAS downstate: 844-666-6270, for New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, and Westchester
• MAS upstate: 866-932-7740, for the other 53 counties
• Fidelis claim questions: 1-888-FIDELIS (1-888-343-3547), Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Fidelis EDI team: hipaa-edi_team@fideliscare.org, for electronic claims and remittances
• NYSDOH Medicaid transportation: medtrans@health.ny.gov or 518-473-2160
• eMedNY Call Center: 800-343-9000, for eligibility and fee-for-service claims