Washington County, Maryland Health Department Transportation: The Medicaid Ride Contract and Rates (2027)

Washington County runs its Medicaid rides with one office and one company. The Health Department in Hagerstown screens every request and schedules it, and a single contractor drives every ride, from a sedan to a critical care ambulance. That contractor is Am-Van Inc., trading as AAA Transport, which drove the 2025-26 contract and won the new one in June 2026 after a fresh round of bids.

Who arranges Medicaid rides in Washington County

Maryland pays for Medicaid rides through transportation grants to the local health departments and Montgomery County’s transportation department, under the state plan page CMS approved on May 20, 2026 (transmittal 26-0002, effective January 1, 2026). The Maryland Department of Health is also working toward one statewide NEMT dispatch and claims system, which the legislature’s 2026 budget analysis expects to finish in 2030. The Maryland guide explains the grant rules, the licenses, and the statewide plan.

Here the grant goes to the Washington County Health Department, which pays the contractor’s bills from it. Program staff at 1302 Pennsylvania Avenue take calls at 240-313-3264. Under the 2026 contract they screen requests during business hours, from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. Screeners confirm that the rider lives in the county, has active Medicaid in the state’s eligibility system, and has no other way to get there, then set the mode, the addresses, and the pickup time.

The contractor gets the next day’s trip manifest by fax or secure email by 1 p.m. Between noon and 1 p.m., after 4 p.m., and whenever the office is closed, hospitals call the contractor directly for discharges and transfers. The contractor screens those calls itself, reports each one to the Health Department within 24 hours, and the Health Department rescreens it before approving payment.

How much work the contract carries

The Health Department’s April 2026 request for proposals describes a program that averages 18,262 transports a year for about 1,300 eligible people, and it counted completed trips by mode. Ambulatory rides make up about two thirds of the work:

Mode	FY2023	FY2024	FY2025
Ambulatory	12,606	11,407	11,778
Wheelchair van	4,827	3,806	3,820
Basic life support ambulance	2,027	1,905	2,241
Advanced life support ambulance	102	120	149
All modes	19,562	17,238	17,988

The fiscal 2025 figures are annualized. The rider count moved more than the trip count: ambulatory riders rose from 248 in fiscal 2023 to 861 in fiscal 2025, while ambulatory trips stayed under 12,700. Each ambulatory rider took about 51 trips a year in fiscal 2023 and about 14 in fiscal 2025. The program counted 1,660 different riders across all modes in fiscal 2025, though one person can use more than one mode.

Most trips are short. In fiscal 2025 the program logged 127,058.8 ambulatory miles, about 11 miles a trip, 23,981.1 wheelchair van miles, about 6 a trip, and 32,797.7 ambulance miles, about 14 a trip. The program used to be busier: MDH’s 2019 report to the legislature counted 31,841 paid trips in fiscal 2017 and 22,097 in fiscal 2019. See rural NEMT for planning the longer out-of-county runs.

Who holds the contract and what it pays

AAA Transport drove the county’s rides in 2025-26 under the second option year of the Health Department’s earlier bid, WCHD-2022-01, for $1,220,125. Its principal office is at 1315 Marlboro Road in Lothian, in Anne Arundel County. The Health Department then rebid the work as WCHD-2026-02, issued April 13, 2026, with proposals due May 14.

On June 9, 2026 the County Commissioners, sitting as the Board of Health, voted 5-0 to award the new contract to Am-Van Inc., trading as AAA Transport. It is again $1,220,125, now for the year ending June 30, 2027, and the Health Department may add two one-year options at the prices set in the contract. Payment cannot exceed that amount without a written change, and 100% of it comes from the Maryland Medicaid grant.

The 2025-26 fee schedule

These are the rates in the fee schedule attached to the 2025-26 contract, for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026. Each base rate includes the first mile, and mileage is billed to the tenth of a mile:

Service	Base rate, first mile included	Each added mile
Ambulatory or sedan	$45.00	$3.00
Wheelchair or mixed van	$68.00	$3.00
Basic life support ambulance	$295.00	$9.00
Advanced life support ambulance	$425.00	$9.00
Critical care or neonatal ambulance	$950.00	$9.00

A bariatric ambulance trip at any level added $200. At these rates, an 11-mile ambulatory ride paid $45 plus 10 miles at $3.00, or $75. The 2026-27 prices come from AAA Transport’s financial proposal of May 8, 2026, which is part of the new contract. You can ask the Health Department for that price sheet under the Maryland Public Information Act.

Under the 2026 contract, shared rides are the default for ambulatory and wheelchair trips, and each rider and approved attendant is billed at the base rate. Mileage is paid for one rider at a time. In 2025-26 an added rider earned another $45 or $68 base rate but no mileage unless the first rider got out before the second rider’s trip ended. The 2025-26 contract says an MDH policy amendment on duplicate riders prompted that fee schedule change, and the 2026 request for proposals treats mileage billed for two riders at once as an overpayment.

What the contract asks of the company that drives

The 2026 request for proposals sets the service the contractor and any subcontractor deliver:

• Every level of service. Ambulatory, wheelchair, bariatric wheelchair, and basic, advanced, specialty care, and bariatric ambulance, directly or through approved subcontractors, with a Maryland commercial ambulance license for the ambulance work.
• Where and when. Rides for county residents to Medicaid-covered care anywhere in Maryland, and outside the state when needed, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, plus occasional Sundays and holidays when dialysis centers and other facilities are open. Discharges from county facilities run around the clock, and a hospital calling after hours gets a ride within two hours.
• A severe weather plan. Your proposal must show how you will keep driving dialysis and chemotherapy riders through snow, ice, sleet, and freezing rain. See dialysis transportation and the bad weather policy guide.
• Only program riders on board. While a Medicaid rider is aboard, the vehicle carries no one outside the program except an attendant for a minor or a medically necessary attendant.
• Fair treatment. No charging riders, no tips of any kind, no favoritism, and never denying or suspending an eligible rider. A driver may not leave a rider behind over extra bags or food, or because the rider comes out of a different address than the drop-off.
• Waits and windows. Reach the pickup no more than 60 minutes before the appointment time for a ride inside the county, or 90 minutes for one outside it, unless the drive takes longer than 90 minutes. Pick up for the return within 60 minutes of the scheduled time inside the county, or 90 minutes outside. Drivers wait at least 7 minutes before recording a no-show, and neither no-shows nor rides cancelled before the vehicle arrives are paid.
• A Maryland dispatch office. The contract monitor may visit it and inspect any vehicle without notice. A driver change at your office is allowed only if the rider waits 5 minutes or less and stays in the same vehicle.
• Living wage. The contract is over $100,000, so Maryland’s living wage law applies. From September 29, 2026 that means at least $15.00 an hour when most of the work is run from a Tier 2 county such as Washington, or $17.54 from a Tier 1 county other than Montgomery.
• A clean handoff. Near the end, the contractor gives a draft transition plan 120 business days ahead and, when the Health Department asks, helps hand the work to the next company for up to the last 60 days.

The proposal bond, the $1,000,000 performance bond, the insurance limits, and the invoice rules are in the Maryland guide.

How a new company gets Washington County trips

1. Ask AAA Transport about subcontracting. The contract allows subcontractors only with the Health Department’s prior written approval, and each one meets every requirement in the request for proposals. A wheelchair or ambulance company near Hagerstown can offer local capacity. See how to subcontract NEMT trips.
2. Mark the option dates. The first option year runs July 1, 2027 to June 30, 2028, and the second runs to June 30, 2029. The 2026 bid gave companies about a month, from April 13 to May 14, for a contract starting in July.
3. Watch two places. The Health Department posts formal bids over $100,000 on its own site and on eMMA, Maryland’s procurement portal, and keeps no bidders list. Register on eMMA, which is free and required to receive an award, and read the County Commissioners’ agendas, where each contract appears under the Board of Health.
4. Check the experience rule. A prime bidder needs at least six years in the last eight running ambulatory, wheelchair, and ambulance service. Technical and price scores count equally, and prices are ranked on a worksheet that multiplies them by three-year average volumes of 11,931 ambulatory, 4,151 wheelchair, 2,058 basic life support, and 124 advanced life support trips. See government NEMT contracts.
5. Hold the right license. Vans and sedans usually need Maryland PSC carrier authority and for-hire driver licenses, and the PSC also licenses taxicabs and their drivers in Hagerstown. Ambulance work needs a MIEMSS license. Washington County sits outside the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission’s district, so trips that start here need no WMATC certificate. See NEMT vs ambulance.