NEMT in Sarasota: The Health Department Van Permit and Who Buys the Rides

In Sarasota County the rules for wheelchair and stretcher vans sit in the health code. Chapter 62 makes the Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County the permit office for every NEMT service and every van, with its own standards for drivers, helpers, and equipment. The county’s paratransit is fully contracted out, but since April 2026 it all goes to one company under a long contract. For a small company, the openings run through the permit, the Medicaid brokers, and private work.

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 and state rules, and the Florida NEMT license guide compares Sarasota’s permit with the other counties that license vans.

Who arranges NEMT in Sarasota County

What	Who arranges or approves it	Phone
Permits for your service and each wheelchair or stretcher van	Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County, 2200 Ringling Blvd., Sarasota	941-861-2900
State-funded and ADA paratransit (Breeze Plus)	Sarasota County, through Breeze Transit, 5303 Pinkney Ave.	941-861-1021
Breeze Plus trip booking	Via, the county’s contractor	941-777-6000
Medicaid rides for members not in a health plan	MTM Health, for Region F	1-844-239-5974
Medicaid rides for plan members	Each plan’s broker: Alivi, Modivcare, Ride2MD, or MTM Health	Through the plan

What the Sarasota County NEMT permit covers

Article VIII covers vehicles used to carry riders confined to wheelchairs or on stretchers who do not need medical care during the ride. A permitted service may not provide basic or advanced life support, and its vans may not carry life support equipment. The only exception is an optional basic first aid kit, with contents the health department administrator sets.

The article exempts state-licensed ambulances, public transit vehicles, vehicles under a physician’s direct supervision in an emergency, and vans based outside the county. That last exemption has a catch: any outside van that picks up a rider inside Sarasota County must meet the Sarasota rules.

The rules step aside only in a city that enforces its own ordinance with equal or stronger standards (sec. 62-265). The City of Sarasota’s vehicles-for-hire chapter now holds only a bus shelter rule, and Venice’s covers low-speed and horse or pedal vehicles, so neither city has its own NEMT ordinance. On September 28, 2021 the county repealed the article’s sunset clause (Ordinance 2021-050), so the article no longer carries an expiry date.

How to get a Sarasota County NEMT permit

1. Get the forms from the health department at 941-861-2900. You apply for the service and for each van on the department’s forms.
2. Pay the fees. The health department’s fees take effect once the county commission approves them by resolution (sec. 62-1), so ask the department for the current amounts.
3. Show your insurance at the county’s limits, with 30 days of cancellation notice to the department.
4. Write a call-screening statement that explains how you make sure every call you answer is nonemergency. The permit cannot issue without it.
5. Have each van meet the equipment rules below. The department issues the permit within 30 days of receiving the application once all of this is in place.

If the department denies you, you can ask its administrator for a review in writing within 30 days of the denial, stating your reasons. The administrator answers within 15 days. If the denial stands, you have 30 days to appeal to the county commission through the Clerk to the Board, with your application, the review request and answer, and the basis for your appeal. The commission’s decision is final.

Driver, helper, and vehicle rules in Sarasota

Your company must document that each driver:

• is at least 18
• swears under oath to having no physical or mental condition that could impair driving a van, and no addiction to alcohol or drugs
• has had no reckless driving or DUI conviction, and no license suspension under the state point system, in the last three years
• holds the right Florida driver license for the vehicle
• holds current basic CPR certification from the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, or an equivalent
• swears not to text or drive distracted behind the wheel of a permitted van

Anyone who rides along to help must also be at least 18, hold current CPR, and swear to being fit for the work and free of addiction. Each van needs enough staff to load, carry, and unload riders safely. The NEMT driver requirements guide covers the broker rules that sit on top of these.

Equipment	Sarasota rule (sec. 62-257)
Every van	Inside mirror to watch the rider (at least 19 square inches, or 5 inches across if round), door latches, a smooth floor with full covering, a 1A:10B:C extinguisher, 50 inches from floor to ceiling, two-way radio or a hands-free phone, a full hard-shell roof, and a seatbelt cutter
Wheelchair vans	A ramp or lift, two separate tie-downs per wheelchair that allow no more than 2 inches of movement forward or back and none sideways, and a belt to hold each rider in the chair
Stretcher vans	A floor or wall stretcher mount and at least two straps per stretcher, one of them a shoulder restraint
Oxygen	Only the rider’s own, if the rider is alert and manages it, secured upright, with no more than 500 liters on board and regulators of 6 liters a minute or less

Stretcher riders get clean blankets or disposable sheets each trip, soiled linen goes in an airtight compartment, and stretchers are disinfected after every use. Each van gets a yearly mechanical inspection on the department’s own checklist, and no one smokes in a van during a trip.

Keeping a Sarasota permit

• Yearly renewal. Every permit expires on June 30, and the department renews it only after inspecting your service and vans.
• No transfers. A permit cannot move to another owner, another address, or another van, so a replacement van needs its own permit.
• Display. Show the van’s permit number in letters at least 3 inches high on the front and back, the vehicle permit inside the van, and the service permit at your office.
• Records. Keep personnel, registration, inspection, and insurance records for three years at your office, plus a separate log of unusual incidents during trips with the rider’s name, date, time, and what happened.
• Advertising. Never use the word “ambulance” or the Star of Life. Say plainly that you give no medical care, and print your department permit number in every print and online ad.
• Enforcement. The department may inspect at reasonable hours. A violation left uncorrected after written notice costs you the permit, and each day of violation is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500, up to 60 days in jail, or both.

Breeze Plus and state-funded trips

The Sarasota County Board of County Commissioners coordinates the state’s Transportation Disadvantaged program through Breeze Transit, known as SCAT until 2023. Its current term runs from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2028, and the county ended its Medicaid transportation contract on January 1, 2008. Sarasota is a complete brokerage: the county drives none of the trips itself.

Sarasota, fiscal 2024-25	Figure
Trips by contracted operators	153,954
Trips by coordination contractors	3,322
Trips paid by the state Medicaid agency	0
Medical trips	37,650 of 157,276
Vehicles	93
Wheelchair accessible vehicles	71
Cost per paratransit trip	$60.75

That year the work was split. MTM Transit, LLC had run paratransit and leased the county’s vehicles under a contract approved October 26, 2021, and Via ran the on-demand zones under an April 2021 contract. Both contracts ended March 31, 2026. The county issued a request for proposals on August 8, 2025, and on January 13, 2026 the commission awarded one combined contract to Via, operating as River North Transit, LLC. It began April 1, 2026 for five years, with options that could carry it to March 31, 2035.

The new contract is priced at first at $58.56 per vehicle revenue hour, where the old paratransit contract averaged just over $53.84 per trip in fiscal 2025. Breeze told its board in June 2026 that ambulatory trips now run in minivans and in drivers’ own SUVs. From April to June 2026, Breeze Plus completed 20,655 state-funded trips for 892 riders, and 15.8% of those trips were wheelchair trips.

State trip-grant rate per trip, 2026-27	Ambulatory	Wheelchair
Approved by the local board, June 3, 2026	$16.00	$27.42
Revised rates on the September 9, 2026 agenda	$28.74	$49.27
Revised rates without subsidy	$41.56	$71.24

Those are the rates the state’s trip grant pays the county for riders no agency sponsors, not what a contractor earns. Five agencies held coordination contracts in the June 2026 plan to carry their own clients: The Haven, the Suncoast Center for Independent Living, The Pines of Sarasota, Sunrise Community of Southwest Florida, and Sunnyside Properties of Sarasota. The county reviews contractors every year for safety plans, maintenance, driver records and training, and drug and alcohol testing, and it pays invoices through the Clerk under the state’s Local Government Prompt Payment Act.

Medicaid rides in Sarasota County

Sarasota is in Medicaid Region F. 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 17 vehicles in Sarasota: 13 cab and 4 lift, with no stretcher van. Plan members book with their plan’s broker. As of August 31, 2026:

Plan	Sarasota members	Broker for its rides
Sunshine Health	19,102	Alivi
Humana Medical Plan	6,147	Modivcare
Simply Healthcare	5,529	Ride2MD
Community Care Plan	1,592	Modivcare
Florida Community Care	765	Ride2MD

The county had 33,191 members in these comprehensive plans. Aetna, with 19 members, and UnitedHealthcare, with 15, barely reach Sarasota, although both have thousands in Manatee to the north.

What to do first in Sarasota County

1. Call the health department at 941-861-2900 for the service and vehicle applications, the current fees, and its vehicle inspection checklist.
2. Build your vans to the Sarasota list before you apply: the 50-inch ceiling, the 1A:10B:C extinguisher, the seatbelt cutter, the passenger mirror, and the 3-inch permit numbers.
3. Get every driver and helper CPR certified and collect their sworn statements.
4. Enroll with Florida Medicaid and apply to Alivi first. Sunshine Health had more than half of the county’s comprehensive plan members in August 2026.
5. Look at stretcher work. MTM Health counted no stretcher vans in Sarasota in 2025. See stretcher van requirements.
6. Go to the Sarasota Local Coordinating Board. It meets at the Sarasota/Manatee MPO, 5460-A 63rd Street East in Bradenton, and its packets carry Breeze’s service plan, rates, and quarterly trip counts. Before you drive for any contractor as a subcontractor, read how to subcontract NEMT trips.

Breeze shares a bus route and Longboat Key service with Manatee County to the north, and its on-demand zone reaches into Englewood in Charlotte County to the south.