Medical Transportation in Kissimmee, FL: The Osceola County Van Permit and Who Books Rides

In Osceola County the county commission, not a state office, decides who may run a wheelchair or stretcher van. A 1989 ordinance requires a separate county permit for every nonemergency vehicle, and the commission grants each one by motion after a public hearing. The rides come from three buyers: LYNX for the state’s Transportation Disadvantaged program, MTM Health for Medicaid members outside a plan, and the brokers of the health plans that cover most of the county’s Medicaid members.

Florida has no state NEMT license, so you enroll with Florida Medicaid through AHCA and then join the brokers your county’s plans use. The Florida guide covers enrollment, screening, and state vehicle rules, and the Florida NEMT license guide compares every county that licenses vans.

Who arranges medical transportation in Osceola County

What	Who arranges or approves it	Phone
A permit for each wheelchair or stretcher van	Osceola County Board of County Commissioners, after a public hearing	407-742-2275
State-funded and ADA paratransit rides	LYNX, through ACCESS LYNX, for Osceola, Orange, and Seminole counties	407-254-6039, rides 407-423-8747
Medicaid rides for members not in a health plan	MTM Health, for Region E	1-844-239-5974
Medicaid rides for plan members	Each plan’s broker: Alivi, Ride2MD, Modivcare, or MTM Health	Through the plan
Local business tax receipt	Osceola County Tax Collector, 2501 E. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee	407-742-4000

What the Osceola permit covers

Chapter 12, article II of the county code defines nonemergency service as carrying people on stretchers or in wheelchairs, or people whose illness, injury, or disability makes a bus or taxi impractical, when they need no medical care on the way. A permitted vehicle is one specially designed, built, or equipped for that work. The article leaves out:

• hospitals carrying their own patients free of charge in hospital vehicles
• ambulances that hold the county’s certificate of public convenience and necessity
• public buses and school board buses
• the Osceola Council on Aging, when it carries people to and from home under a government-funded program

Government agencies that own and drive their own vans pay no permit fees (sec. 12-32).

The article is the one set of NEMT rules for the whole county, cities included, unless a city ordinance conflicts (sec. 12-28). Kissimmee’s vehicles-for-hire chapter, codified through February 2025, covers only wreckers, so the county permit governs vans based in Kissimmee too.

Two rules decide where your vans can work from. Each permit holder must keep a central place of business inside Osceola County with a listed local phone number, answered 24 hours a day (sec. 12-73). And the code lets a company drop off inside the county a rider it lawfully picked up in another county (sec. 12-31). So an Orlando company can bring a rider to a Kissimmee clinic without an Osceola permit, but it needs one to pick that rider up for the trip home.

How to get an Osceola County nonemergency vehicle permit

1. Prepare the sworn application

The written application is signed under oath and filed with the county commission through the county department the code calls the Department of Public Safety. Call the county at 407-742-2275 and ask which office takes nonemergency vehicle permit applications today. The county’s form asks for:

• each vehicle, your trade name, and the colors and markings you plan to use
• a management plan covering maintenance, complaints and accidents, driver training, and communications
• your days and hours of service and your proposed public fares
• five years of transportation business history and any non-traffic criminal convictions in that time
• credit references, including at least one bank, and your current financial statement (the certified one, if you have one)
• your experience, the address you will operate from, the area you will serve, and proof of insurance

2. Pay the fees

Fee	Amount
Investigation and first permit, nonrefundable	$100
Each extra van on the same application	$75
Yearly renewal, due 30 days before expiry	$100
Driver (chauffeur) registration	$10

3. Go to the public hearing

The county mails at least 20 days of notice of the hearing, by certified mail, to you and to every current permit holder. The companies already running in Osceola therefore hear about your application and can speak at the hearing. The commission weighs your ability to provide the service, the quality of your management plan, and the benefit to the public. It can approve, deny, or approve with conditions, and each approving motion names every van it authorizes.

4. Finish within 90 days

Approval brings a conditional 90-day permit. The full permit, signed by the commission chair, follows once you file proof of insurance and pass the vehicle inspections. If you miss the 90 days, the approval is revoked automatically. Keep the permit at your office and the county’s permit emblem in each van. You can appeal a staff decision to the commission within 30 days, and commission decisions go to circuit court.

Insurance, vehicle, and driver rules in Osceola

File a certificate of insurance for each van on the county’s form. The floor is $100,000 per person, $300,000 per occurrence, and $50,000 for property damage, from an insurer authorized in Florida. The county accepts no policy shorter than six months, and each policy must be endorsed to give the commission 30 days of notice by registered mail before any change or cancellation. A lapse suspends that van’s permit automatically. The state’s Transportation Disadvantaged rule sets a higher floor, $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, for any trip bought through LYNX. See NEMT insurance requirements.

Vehicle item	Osceola rule (secs. 12-74 to 12-82)
Safety	The Florida Highway Patrol vehicle inspection manual in effect
Fire extinguisher	Five-pound ABC
Stretcher vans	At least 48 inches from floor to ceiling in the passenger area
Wheelchair vans	An electric or hydraulic lift
Radio	A two-way radio, not a CB, linking every van to your base
Markings	Company name, phone, and van number on the outside, in a color scheme the commission approves, never ambulance colors
Inspection	Once a year by the county, plus inspections at any time

Every driver registers with the county, and the sheriff’s office checks each applicant’s criminal history through the federal and state crime information centers. The code asks for a current Florida chauffeur’s license, which is not one of Florida’s license classes today (A, B, C, and E), so ask the county which license it accepts. Drivers must speak, read, and write English well enough for the job. The county refuses drivers addicted to drugs or alcohol and drivers convicted of a felony, a crime of moral turpitude, or a weapons or narcotics trafficking offense, unless their civil rights have been restored. A six-month temporary registration is possible while restoration is pending.

Running a van under an Osceola permit

• Fares. You file a public rate with your application. To change it, file the new rate 30 days ahead and post it in each van 15 days before it starts. Rates set in a written contract take effect only after you file the signed contract with the county (sec. 12-81), so ask the county how it wants broker and facility agreements filed.
• Trip sheets. Record the driver, van number, date, time, origin, destination, passengers, and fare for every trip, on a form the county approves, and keep them for three years.
• Stretcher service. Screen each request on the county’s form to confirm a stretcher van is safe for the rider, take stretcher trips by appointment only, and run at least 10 straight hours of service on each day you operate.
• Advertising. Say plainly that the service is nonemergency and gives no medical care, and never use the word “ambulance”.
• Staying active. By December 31 each year, certify how many months you ran. A permit ends automatically if you do not certify or ran fewer than nine months.
• Selling. Any sale, transfer, or change in who controls the company needs the commission’s approval first.

ACCESS LYNX and state-funded trips in Osceola

LYNX has coordinated the Transportation Disadvantaged program for Osceola, Orange, and Seminole since October 1, 1992. ACCESS LYNX stopped carrying Medicaid trips in March 2015, when Medicaid rides moved to the health plans. In fiscal 2024-25 the Osceola system gave 284,509 trips, 38,950 of them medical:

Osceola, fiscal 2024-25	Trips
Carried by LYNX	131,112
Carried by its contracted operator	111,500
Carried by coordination contractors	41,897
Paid for by the state Medicaid agency	0

The county’s system ran 62 vehicles, 50 of them wheelchair accessible, with 93 drivers, at $33.23 per trip and $51.22 per paratransit trip. LYNX also sends some riders by rideshare or taxi, and 17,778 Osceola trips went by rideshare that year.

For fiscal 2026-27 the three counties’ coordinating board approved LYNX rates of $44.84 per ambulatory trip and $76.87 per wheelchair trip, down 0.84% from $45.22 and $77.52. LYNX chooses its paratransit operator through a request for proposals. ACCESS LYNX drivers must be at least 21, pass a U.S. DOT physical and a pre-employment drug test, and have acceptable driving and criminal records.

Agencies that carry their own clients can ask for a coordination contract, in writing, to the Director of Mobility Services, LYNX, 455 N. Garland Avenue, Orlando 32801. The contract requires a system safety program plan, drug testing, and insurance at the state minimum. Osceola agencies with coordination contracts in 2025 included the Osceola County Council on Aging, Park Place Behavioral Health Care, and The Opportunity Center in Kissimmee, plus the Good Samaritan Society’s Kissimmee Village.

Medicaid rides in Osceola County

Osceola is in Medicaid Region E. Under the state’s NEMT waiver for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027, MTM Health serves members who are not in a plan, and its 2025 capacity analysis listed 42 vehicles in Osceola: 29 cab, 11 lift, and 2 stretcher. Plan members book with their plan’s broker. As of August 31, 2026:

Plan	Osceola members	Broker for its rides
Sunshine Health	32,497	Alivi
Simply Healthcare	15,294	Ride2MD
Humana Medical Plan	12,129	Modivcare
Aetna Better Health	9,996	Modivcare
Community Care Plan	1,572	Modivcare
Florida Community Care	235	Ride2MD

The county had 71,801 members in these comprehensive plans that month. UnitedHealthcare, whose rides moved to MTM Health on March 1, 2026, had only 50.

What to do first in Osceola County

1. Pick a base inside the county and set up a local phone line answered 24 hours a day. The permit requires both.
2. Call the county at 407-742-2275 for the permit application and driver registration forms, and ask how soon a hearing can be scheduled.
3. Get the vans and insurance ready before the hearing. The 90-day clock starts at approval, and the policy needs a six-month term and the registered-mail endorsement.
4. Enroll with Florida Medicaid and apply to Alivi and Ride2MD, which arrange rides for the two largest plans in the county, then to Modivcare and MTM Health.
5. File each signed broker or facility contract with the county so its rates take effect.
6. Talk to dialysis centers. LYNX’s 2026 service plan lists dialysis centers in Kissimmee, St. Cloud, Celebration, Buenaventura Lakes, and Poinciana. See dialysis transportation.

Next door, Orange County also uses LYNX for state-funded rides, and Polk County sets no county permit for wheelchair or stretcher vans.