Dispatch Log Sheet for NEMT Offices: Every Call, Change, and Cancellation with the Time

Most arguments with a broker come down to two questions: who called, and when. A rider says they canceled the night before, and the broker’s record shows a no-show. A clinic says it called for the return at 2:10, and the van arrived at 3:30. The dispatch log sheet is the office’s answer. Every call in and out gets one line, written as it happens, with the time, the trip, what was asked, what you did, and when the broker heard about it.

How to use this template

1. Keep one sheet running at the dispatch desk all day. Start a new page when one fills, and number the pages. If two people answer phones, both write on the same sheet and initial their own lines. The NEMT dispatcher checklist covers the routine checks of the day. This sheet covers the calls.
2. Write the clock time when the call starts. Read it off the phone or computer, never a guess. Log the calls you make too: confirmation calls, late-van calls, and calls to the broker.
3. Tie every line to a trip. Write the broker’s trip ID and the leg, A for the ride there and B for the ride back. Skip calls that have nothing to do with a trip or a rider.
4. Check who is calling before you share trip details. CareOregon’s manual (February 2024) bars dispatchers from giving member or trip information to a caller until they verify the caller’s identity. It limits what they share to the member, the member’s caregiver or representative, and the member’s health care provider.
5. Send changes to the broker, and log it. When a rider or facility asks for a new time, a new address, or an extra stop, write the request, then write when you sent it to the broker and the broker’s reference number or the name of the person you spoke with.
6. Cancel with the broker too. A rider who cancels with you is not canceled with the broker until you tell it. MTM Health’s Rhode Island handbook (July 1, 2026) lets you mark the trip Member Cancel in MTM Link when a member cancels directly with you.
7. Start the will-call clock at the call. Write the minute a rider or clinic says the rider is ready. That time is what the broker’s return window counts from. Managing will-call trips covers how much van time to hold for them.
8. Fix mistakes with one line through them. Never erase or use correction fluid. WellTrans’s provider agreement (revised October 16, 2025) says trip log changes should be made with a single line so the original still shows, and dated and initialed. Alivi’s record retention policy (effective January 1, 2024) wants every change to a record to show the date, time, reason, and who made it. Use the same habit on this sheet.
9. Move complaints and incidents to their own forms. Write a short line here, then fill in the complaint log or the incident report form, and note that you did.
10. Hand off, then file. Copy anything still open into Part 3 before you leave. File the sheet with the day’s daily manifests and trip logs, and lock it away, because it names riders’ trips.

The template

Part 1: Desk and shift

Field	Entry
Company name
Date
Dispatcher and shift hours
Second person answering phones, and hours
Phone lines, text lines, and email inboxes covered
Broker portals checked at the start of the shift (time)
Calls recorded? If yes, the announcement used
Page ___ of ___

Part 2: Call log

Who: R for a rider or family member, F for a facility or clinic, B for a broker or health plan, D for a driver, O for anyone else. In or out: I for a call you took, O for a call you made.

Time	In or out	Who (code and name or role)	Trip ID, leg	What they asked or said	What we did	Broker told (time, ref. no.)	Initials

What goes in the columns:

• Time: the hour and minute, with a.m. or p.m. For a voicemail, write the time it was left and the time you heard it.
• Who: the code plus a first name or a role, such as “F, dialysis front desk” or “D, van 4.” The trip ID already identifies the rider, so leave the rider’s full name, address, and health details off this sheet.
• What they asked or said: ready for pickup, cancel, new time, new address, extra stop, where is my ride, running late, vehicle problem, complaint, or incident.
• What we did: sent van 4, called the rider back, sent the request to the broker, told the caller to call the broker, confirmed for tomorrow, left a voicemail, or moved it to the complaint log.
• Broker told: the time and the broker’s reference number or the name of the person you spoke with. Write “N/A” when the broker did not need to know, such as a rider asking what time the van comes.

Part 3: Still open at the end of the shift

Trip ID, leg	What is still open	Waiting on (rider, facility, broker, or driver)	Handed to	Time

Part 4: Sign-off

Field	Entry
Complaints moved to the complaint log (how many)
Incidents moved to an incident report (how many)
Cancellations entered in each broker’s portal (yes, or which are missing)
Dispatcher signature and time
Next dispatcher or owner, initials
Filed with the manifests and trip logs for (date)

Why the time of every call matters

Return trips run on a clock that starts with a phone call. MTM Health’s Rhode Island handbook (July 1, 2026) requires the vehicle for a will-call return within 45 minutes of the time of notification. MAS, New York’s broker, requires a vehicle within 1 hour of the time you are told a return with no set time is ready, and a same-day hospital discharge picked up within 3 hours of receiving the reservation (network manual, October 1, 2023). Texas Medicaid health plans require a pickup within 1 hour of the member’s request for the return, and allow up to 3 hours for a hospital discharge (UMCM 16.4). When a broker scores a return as late, your log line with the time of the ready call is the record you check it against. See will-call trip for how these windows work.

Whether a cancellation counts as late, and whether a no-show is the rider’s or yours, turns on the time of the call and what happened at the door. Can you bill for NEMT no-shows and the no-show policy template cover who pays, and late cancellation lists notice deadlines by program.

Some programs make the record a rule. Texas’s NEMT handbook for Medicaid health plans (version 2.0.1, effective August 1, 2021) requires the NEMT provider to document every cancellation, member or provider no-show, and rescheduled trip, whether the member, the health plan or its subcontractor, or the provider asked for the change. It also requires a confirmation with the member 24 hours before pickup, except for add-on trips, nonmedical transportation (NMT) rides, and hospital discharges, never after 9 p.m. local time, by phone, text, or another platform, with documentation of the contact. The “out” lines on this sheet are that documentation.

Same-day trips need a time too. CareOregon’s manual (February 2024) says a brokerage may ask you to take a same-day trip that is already late. The pickup time stays as it was, you are not penalized for the late pickup, and the brokerage documents that the trip reached you late. Write down the minute it reached you. Same-day NEMT trips covers when to accept them.

Changes go to the broker, and the log shows you sent them

On a broker trip, the broker owns the times, the addresses, and the vehicle type. Your log should show that you passed each request along instead of acting on it yourself.

• MAS in New York. The network manual (October 1, 2023) says providers keep to every time and address on the trip invoice, that changes must be requested through MAS in advance by the enrollee or the medical provider, and that providers should direct those changes to MAS. Its provider FAQ says not to accept any change at the request of an enrollee or a medical provider, and warns that doing so may keep the trip invoice from being processed. Every change in the MAS system is signed and time-stamped, so your log can be matched against it.
• CareOregon. The manual (February 2024) bars providers from changing an assigned ride without brokerage authorization. That covers pickup times, appointment times, pickup and destination addresses, and the vehicle type, unless the vehicle sent still meets the member’s needs. Trips not provided as authorized are not paid, and repeated unauthorized changes can lead to suspension or termination. The manual lists making changes or canceling through the brokerage among the member’s own responsibilities.
• MTM Health in Rhode Island. The handbook (July 1, 2026) says drivers go only to the pickup and drop-off locations on the manifest. If a member asks to go somewhere else, the provider contacts MTM for verification and approval, and MTM updates the manifest before the trip goes ahead.
• MTM Health in Virginia. When a pickup will be late, the handbook (approved August 10, 2026) has you contact the affected members or facilities with a new arrival time and notify MTM, which works on another pickup when needed.

A good change line reads like this: the time, “R, daughter,” the trip ID and leg, “wants pickup moved to 10:30,” “told her to call the broker and called the broker too,” and the broker’s reference number. The NEMT dispatch guide walks through the full day these calls fit into.

Recording dispatch calls

Federal law lets you record a call you are part of, or one where a party has consented, unless the purpose is a crime or a tort (18 U.S.C. 2511(2)(d)). State law can be stricter. These ten states require every party’s consent, or at least every party’s knowledge, before some or all calls are recorded:

• California. Penal Code 632 bars recording a confidential communication, in person or by phone, without the consent of all parties. The penalty is a fine of up to $2,500 per violation, jail time, or both.
• Connecticut. General Statutes 52-570d allows recording a private phone call only with every party’s consent, a recorded verbal notice at the beginning, or an automatic tone repeated about every 15 seconds.
• Florida. Statutes 934.03 (2026) makes interception lawful when all parties have given prior consent.
• Illinois. 720 ILCS 5/14-2 bars secretly recording a private conversation you are part of without the consent of all other parties.
• Maryland. Courts and Judicial Proceedings 10-402 allows a party to record only when all parties have given prior consent.
• Massachusetts. Chapter 272, section 99 bars secretly recording a call without prior authority from all parties.
• Montana. Code 45-8-213 bars recording a conversation with a hidden device without the knowledge of all parties.
• New Hampshire. RSA 570-A:2 makes it a felony to intercept a call without the consent of all parties.
• Pennsylvania. 18 Pa.C.S. 5704 allows interception when all parties have given prior consent.
• Washington. RCW 9.73.030 bars recording a private phone call without the consent of all participants, for calls between points within or outside the state.

Check your own state’s statute before you record, and follow the stricter law when you call riders or facilities in another state. The habit that works everywhere is an announcement at the start of every recorded call, in and out, kept on the recording. Washington’s statute treats consent as obtained when one party announces in a reasonably effective way that the call is about to be recorded, and it requires that the announcement be recorded too. A recording holds rider information, so store it with the same care as the sheet and keep it as long as your trip records.

What to write, and how long to keep it

Write only what the call needs. If your company is a HIPAA covered entity or business associate, you must make reasonable efforts to limit health information to the minimum necessary for the purpose (45 CFR 164.502(b)). On this sheet, that means the trip ID, the request, and what you did. A diagnosis or the reason for the visit never belongs here. HIPAA for NEMT providers explains when the rule reaches your company.

The log backs up your trip records but does not replace them. New York’s Medicaid transportation manual (effective August 25, 2023) says a driver or vehicle manifest or a dispatch sheet is not acceptable as the only evidence of a trip, though it can supplement the required records. Keep a trip log for every leg, and use this sheet to show what was asked and when.

Keep it as long as your trip records. Alivi’s record retention policy (effective January 1, 2024) lists communication logs with Medicaid members and health care providers among the records that must be kept at least 10 years from creation or the last service, whichever is later, and longer while a dispute, audit, or investigation is open. The same policy treats forging signatures, changing trip logs, or giving inaccurate data as falsifying records. MTM Health’s standard agreement, in the January 1, 2023 version Pennsylvania posts, asks for full and complete records of your operations under it for 10 years. NEMT record retention lists the periods by state and contract.