Guilford County DSS Medicaid Transportation: How TAMS Books Rides and Where Contract Carriers Fit

Guilford County’s Division of Social Services runs its Medicaid rides through its own transit department, Transportation and Mobility Services (TAMS). TAMS checks who qualifies, picks the mode for each trip, and drives many trips in county vehicles, then hands others to contract providers. It serves riders across the county, Greensboro and High Point included, who cannot use the city bus systems.

Who arranges Medicaid rides in Guilford County

Since July 1, 2021, North Carolina’s county DSS offices have arranged rides only for NC Medicaid Direct and EBCI Tribal Option members, while health plan members ride through their plan’s broker, Modivcare or MTM Health as of October 2026. NC Medicaid’s manual for counties, MA-2910 (revised March 16, 2026), sets the rules for county contract vendors, and the North Carolina guide covers enrollment, rates, and the brokers.

In Guilford, TAMS is the DSS arm that does this work. It was built for residents who lack access to the Greensboro Transit Agency or High Point Transit, and its office is at 301 W. Market St. in Greensboro. A resident with a Medicaid pink or blue card and no other way to an appointment rides free, after a transportation assessment usually done by phone.

The ride can be a bus ticket, a gas voucher, a taxi, or a van. TAMS also drives non-Medicaid residents outside the city limits, seniors to meal sites and adult day care, and workers to jobs, at a $2.50 one-way fare for most riders and free for riders over 60. Medicaid riders book at 336-641-3000, and other calls go to 336-641-2561.

How a TAMS trip runs

The county’s rider rules, set by the Guilford County Transportation Planning Board, are the service standard every TAMS driver and contract provider works to:

• Booking. Riders book by noon on the business day before the trip, so a Monday appointment is booked by noon Friday. TAMS builds each driver’s route a day ahead and schedules no same-day trips.
• Subscription trips. Dialysis and daily adult day care trips are booked once and repeat on a set schedule, with changes due by noon the business day before. TAMS may treat a subscription as one-off trips if its days and times keep changing.
• Hours. Service runs Monday to Friday, 4:50 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dialysis trips run Monday to Saturday, except Christmas and New Year’s Day. See dialysis transportation.
• Pickup window. Drivers arrive from 20 minutes before to 20 minutes after the scheduled time, and the rider is ready 30 minutes early. A contract provider counts as late only after the 20 minutes pass.
• Waits. Drivers wait at least 5 minutes past the scheduled time. A rider who has not boarded by then is a no-show.
• Returns. A rider who calls early is picked up within 60 minutes or at the scheduled return, whichever comes first. A rider can ask for a will-call trip when the appointment length is unknown, though TAMS prefers a set return time.
• Short stops. A driver waits up to 10 minutes for a quick appointment or a pharmacy stop near the clinic, then moves on with the route.
• Door to door. Drivers go to the door and help riders board, but take walking riders up or down only one set of steps, and cannot lift or help wheelchair riders down steps. Wheelchair riders bring their own lap belts. See door to door.
• Escorts. One escort, companion, or personal assistant may ride if named at booking. Their children under 12 ride for $2.50 each way.
• Cancellations. Riders cancel at least 60 minutes before pickup. Three no-shows in a month bring suspensions of one, two, and three weeks, then an indefinite one.
• Weather. TAMS decides by 5 a.m. whether to cancel or change service for the day.

Two rules land on the contract provider directly. If a TAMS vehicle is in a crash with injuries, the contract provider handles the medical claims. And riders may call the provider, not only TAMS, to check on a pickup or say they are ready to go home, so plan to answer your phone through the whole service day.

The county fleet and its contract providers

TAMS is not a broker that hands every trip out. Its fiscal 2028 Section 5310 grant application, which the Board of Commissioners approved on September 3, 2026, lists 21 light transit vehicles and 13 county drivers. The Title VI plan the Board adopted on March 19, 2026 adds a staff of a transit manager, a supervisor, a dispatcher, a reservationist, and two eligibility caseworker assistants, and puts the program at over 42,000 trips a year. The 2022 plan put it at over 94,000.

The county once owned none of its fleet. Its fiscal 2009 grant request said the vehicles were owned and insured by its contractor, MV Transportation, with the insurance paid through the price per trip. The county had taken over the passenger database and every route on December 1, 2007.

The current rider rules refer to contract transit providers, also called the NEMT providers, without naming them. The 2025 Title VI plan says the county adds its nondiscrimination language to every existing contract and puts it in its standard contracts, and each contractor must pass it on in its own subcontracts.

The county keeps applying for state transit money. On September 3, 2026 the Board approved applications for fiscal 2027-28: $200,000 in Section 5310 money, half federal and half county, for salaries and vehicle maintenance, which staff expect to fund 5,174 trips, and $330,266 in Section 5311 money for administration and capital. See Section 5310 grants and human service transportation.

How a carrier gets TAMS trips

1. Enroll in NCTracks as a NEMT provider. The county must tell its vendors to enroll before they drive, and NCTracks pays each trip from the county’s payment authorization.
2. Call the Transit Services Manager at 336-641-3515. Ask whether TAMS is adding contract providers, for which trips (taxi, ambulatory van, or wheelchair van), and at what rate.
3. Request the current contracts. Under North Carolina’s public records law (G.S. 132-1), file a request through the county’s online portal for the TAMS provider contracts and their rates, so you can price against them.
4. Register as a county vendor. Purchasing posts bids and requests for proposals on its vendor self service portal, and its office is at 201 S. Greene St. in Greensboro.
5. Attend the Transportation Advisory Board. It meets quarterly on the third Tuesday at 3 p.m., at the Health and Human Services building, 1203 Maple St.
6. Join the brokers too. Health plan members ride through the brokers, so apply to Modivcare in North Carolina and MTM Health in North Carolina for plan trips.

County trip rates are set in each county’s contract, and North Carolina reversed its October 2025 3% NEMT rate cut in December 2025. See North Carolina’s rate cut reversal. Compare Wake County, where one operator drives every GoWake Access van trip.