Cumberland County DSS Medicaid Transportation: DSS Rides and the County Ride Contracts in Fayetteville

Cumberland County gives a ride company two doors, and they sit in different departments. The Department of Social Services (DSS) arranges NC Medicaid Direct trips. The Community Transportation Program (CTP), which sits with the Fayetteville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization in the county’s planning department, pays private contractors to drive senior, disability, rural, and work trips in their own vans. The CTP’s elderly and disabled program and its rural medical trips are for riders without Medicaid, so a Medicaid member’s medical ride goes through DSS or a health plan.

Since July 1, 2021, every North Carolina county DSS has arranged rides only for NC Medicaid Direct and EBCI Tribal Option members, while health plan members ride through Modivcare or MTM Health in North Carolina. The state’s NEMT manual for county DSS offices, MA-2910 (revised March 16, 2026), requires every DSS ride vendor to enroll in NCTracks, join a random drug and alcohol testing program at its own cost, and pass an annual county review, and the North Carolina guide covers the rest.

Who arranges Medicaid rides in Cumberland County

DSS runs Medicaid transportation from its main building at 1225 Ramsey Street in Fayetteville, open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a satellite office at the Spring Lake Family Resource Center. As of October 2026, the state’s local DSS directory and the CTP’s brochure list DSS Medicaid Transportation at 910-677-2526, and the DSS contact page lists a Medical Transportation Coordinator at 910-677-2529. The county’s fiscal 2027 budget names non-emergency Medicaid transportation to medical appointments among the services DSS provides.

A company that wants DSS trips signs its own contract with DSS, not with the CTP. The 2024 CTP bid did not cover Medicaid trips, so winning a CTP contract does not make you a DSS vendor, and losing one does not shut you out of DSS. Ask the coordinator directly whether DSS buys trips from the same three companies, which levels of service it is short on, and how it sends trips and pays.

The Community Transportation Program contracts

The CTP coordinates six programs paid for with state and federal transit money and county funds:

• Elderly and Disabled Medical (EDTAP). Medical and pharmacy trips for riders 60 or older, or disabled with a doctor’s verification.
• Area Agency on Aging Medical and Area Agency on Aging General. Two programs: medical trips, and trips to nutrition sites, for riders 60 or older.
• Elderly and Disabled Non-Medical (Section 5310). Other trips for riders 65 or older or disabled.
• Rural General Public. Medical, shopping, school, and work trips for residents outside the urban boundary.
• Urban Employment. School and work trips for residents inside it.

Riders book with CTP staff by noon the business day before, and the staff fax or email each contractor its trips by 3 p.m. the day before service. The contractor never decides who qualifies. It dispatches, drives, and sends the CTP a record of every trip daily, with no-shows reported right away.

Who won the 2024 bid

The county released the bid on January 11, 2024, and six companies answered by February 9. Unit prices ran from $25.90 to $238.00 a one-way trip, and one proposal was set aside as non-responsive for a missing form. Three members of the Transportation Advisory Board scored the rest on proposal quality (15%), qualifications and experience (30%), references (15%), Disadvantaged Business Enterprise efforts (10%), and value for cost (30%). On March 18, 2024, the Board of Commissioners approved contracts with the three top scorers:

Contractor	Programs	Rate per one-way trip
B&W Transporting	All but EDTAP	$41.00
Famiks Transport	All six	$41.00
Chapmans Management Company	All six	$32.00

The bid allows three providers at most. If one is removed during the term, the county may add the next-ranked proposer from the same bid, so the door for a new company is the next bid, not a mid-term application. The term was set to start July 1, 2024. It runs one year at a time, with up to two renewals at the county’s choice, through June 30, 2027.

What the contract requires

• Vehicles. At least four vehicles with a wheelchair lift or other accessible entry, plus two backups, owned or leased by you, with your name and phone number on the side in letters at least three inches high. The county can inspect them without notice.
• Insurance. $1.5 million for vehicles with 15 or fewer seats and $5 million for 16 or more, from an insurer the county risk manager accepts, with Cumberland County as additional insured. See NEMT insurance requirements.
• Drivers. At least 21, three years of driving experience, a good record for the past three years, and a state driving record sent to the CTP every year. Training in first aid and CPR, drug and alcohol awareness, bloodborne pathogens, ADA equipment and sensitivity, and defensive driving comes before the first trip and is repeated yearly.
• Drug and alcohol testing. Under Federal Transit Administration rules at the county’s approved testing site. You pay, and the county may reimburse up to 85% of the cost when you invoice monthly. See NEMT driver drug testing.
• Office. Someone trained in dispatch answering phones while vehicles are out, and a permanent fax line that takes trip requests during business hours.
• Subcontracting. Only with the CTP’s written consent, and you stay responsible for the work.

Hours, timing, and pay

• Hours. The elderly, disabled, and aging medical programs run weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., except dialysis trips. The rural, employment, and 5310 programs run weekdays from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m.
• Holidays. Service runs on every holiday but Christmas and New Year’s Day, and dialysis riders scheduled on those days get a Saturday or Sunday trip that week. See dialysis transportation.
• Pickup window. Sixty minutes, or 90 minutes for trips to Fort Bragg, which the 2024 bid calls Fort Liberty, the post’s name until February 2025. You must reach 95% on time.
• Waiting. Drivers wait 10 minutes before a no-show, and 15 minutes when a rider picks up a prescription after an appointment. No-shows are not paid.
• Billing. One invoice a month, due by the 5th, with the verified trips and supporting paperwork. The coordinator sends it for payment within 15 days of receiving the paperwork.
• Fares. None on the medical and aging programs. On the 5310, rural, and employment programs the driver collects the fare and both driver and rider sign a log. The rural and employment rider policies (revised April 19, 2024) set the fare at $2.50 a one-way trip.

The county’s fiscal 2027 budget puts $1,420,669 in its elderly and handicapped transportation fund, including $184,007 in EDTAP money and $260,000 in 5310 money for non-medical trips. On September 21, 2026, after a public hearing, the commissioners approved fiscal 2028 grant applications totaling $984,329 for July 1, 2027 to June 30, 2028, including $250,000 in Section 5310 operating money.

Where a private NEMT company fits

• DSS Medicaid Direct trips. Call the coordinator, finish NCTracks enrollment, and sign a DSS contract.
• The next CTP bid. The current term ends June 30, 2027, so a new bid would come before then if the county keeps contracting the work out. The Transportation Advisory Board meets quarterly in Courtroom 3 of the Historic Courthouse, its meetings are open, and the bid invites contractors to attend.
• A subcontract. If one of the three contractors needs extra wheelchair capacity or early dialysis coverage, it can subcontract, but only with the CTP’s written approval. Read how to subcontract NEMT trips first.
• Health plan trips. Apply to Modivcare and MTM Health, which arrange the rides for members of NC Medicaid health plans.

Compare Wake County, where one transit operator drives every county van trip, and read government NEMT contracts for how county bids are scored.

What to do first

1. Call DSS at 910-677-2529 and ask the Medical Transportation Coordinator whether it is adding vendors, for which levels of service, at what rate, and what it needs from you before you enroll.
2. Enroll in NCTracks as a NEMT provider. MA-2910 requires every DSS vendor to be enrolled before its first Medicaid trip.
3. Price the insurance now. $1.5 million in auto liability on each van with 15 or fewer seats was the 2024 bid’s floor, and it is the figure the state manual sets for for-hire vans.
4. Get the fleet ready. Four accessible vehicles plus two backups is the minimum the 2024 bid asked for.
5. Watch for the next bid on the county’s Vendor Self-Service site and the state electronic Vendor Portal, and attend a Transportation Advisory Board meeting before it opens.