Colfax Health & Rehab to launch community transport service

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  It was, as they say, a long time coming.

Or maybe a better way of looking at it — good things come to those who wait.

After working for the past year on finding just the right transport van, doing some fund raising, and then obtaining all of the proper certification, the Colfax Health and Rehabilitation Center is ready to launch its own transport service.

Colfax Health and Rehab will begin transporting CHRC residents December 1.

The transport service will be available to the public January 1.

Jill Gengler, CHRC administrator, had hoped to be able to start providing rides to Colfax Health and Rehab residents and the Colfax community several months ago.

The transport van was already in CHRC’s possession in August.

“We were waiting on certification from the state of Wisconsin to be able to transport and to bill folks outside the facility,” Gengler said.

“We are grandfathered in to do anyone who lives in the skilled nursing facility. We don’t have to have a special certification to do that. But to (provide transport) for anyone who lives in the assisted living or the community, we needed to be, through the state of Wisconsin, authorized as a specialized medical vehicle transport,” she said.

Gengler hastened to point out that the new transport service “is not an ambulance.”

“We would not provide emergency medical transportation, just standard to and from the doctor,” she said.

Part of the approval process included the rate structure, billing procedures and transport procedures, Gengler said.

“We had to have all of the drivers trained, and I had to go and get fingerprinted. The insurance is very demanding, so we had to get different insurance and get all of those certificates in place,” she said.

In the beginning, CHRC plans to “take on the transports we contract out right now, and then anybody else in the community who uses a service like Handi-Lift, we would like to be an option for them too,” Gengler said.

Other activities

The CHRC bus also will be available for transport to other activities as well, such as shopping trips or family events, and will not only be for medical transport.

“Our goal is to be more affordable by quite a bit. It is our mission to make that transportation more affordable. With the insurance, the gas and the driver, you are still at an expense,” Gengler said.

“We probably will not be available 24/7 and will probably run during regular business hours. If transport is needed on the weekends, we can go on the availability of a driver,” she said.

“Medicaid will not pay for anything that is not medical. But if you want to go to a wedding or you want to go to a family function and need transportation, we would do those on an as-needed basis,” Gengler said.

For people who live in the community, transport to a doctor’s appointment could be a matter of coordinating appointments on a certain day.

“Our goal is to offset the cost. The way to offset would be to have people share in the cost. Maybe we could take two or three people. We could coordinate a specific day when people wanted to go to the clinic in either Bloomer or Eau Claire. Maybe Tuesday is clinic day, and we pick up at 9 a.m. and come back at 1 p.m. Maybe people could share in that cost, and it would be more affordable. Maybe it would be a half a day in Eau Claire,” Gengler said.

“Another goal of ours is that all drivers will be certified nursing assistants, so we can get people transferred and can toilet people if we need to, and maybe to help get the records back and forth. We are hoping to provide a higher level of care that our residents will benefit from — and hopefully for people in the community, too,” she said.

Community service 

Other transport services are available, but they are not exactly a dime a dozen.

“There’s not too many out that there that provide this service. There’s a company in Ladysmith, a nursing home, that started their own transport company, so I’ve been in conversation with them, I’ve been on the phone with them quite a lot, on how they do this and how they do that, and how this works and how that works. They’ve been very helpful,” Gengler said.

The other commercial transport services out there are in business only to do transport, she noted.

“This is a different ball of wax. Their only mission is to transport people. We are trying to be more of a community service and to help our own residents,” Gengler said.

CHRC also may consider starting a “reduced ride fund” for people with financial need who do not qualify for Medicaid or for transports that would not be paid for by Medicaid. The fund could obtain money through fund raisers, grants and private donations.

Promo tour

Gengler said CHRC plans to take the van on a promotional tour to the Aging and Disability Resource Center (ADRC) in Menomonie, to the Grapevine Senior Center and to area hospitals to make sure they know the rates and availability.

The transport service is intended to also help older members of the community not to feel so isolated if there is a family function they would like to attend but do not have transportation to get there or do not want to drive a longer distance, she noted.

And if Colfax were to once again have a clinic in town, the transport service also would be available to bring people across town to the clinic, if necessary, Gengler said.

Pricing for the CHRC Community Transport Service is a $15 base rate each way; $1 per mile with an unloaded van (first 20 miles free); $1.60 per mile with a loaded van (first five miles free); $10 per hour of wait time.

Cancellations within 24 hours of an appointment will be subject to a $25 cancellation fee.

The transport van is equipped with lifts and ramps to allow wheelchair accessibility. Wheelchairs are secured in place with four tie-down straps and a seat belt.