No-show, cancel at the door and late cancel
- No-show: the rider isn’t at the pickup and can’t be reached during the wait.
- Cancel at the door: the rider is there but declines to ride.
- Late cancel: the trip is cancelled after the payer’s cutoff, often after the van has set off.
What payers ask for
Payers that pay anything for a no-show, and those that pay nothing but still track them, want proof the van was there: arrival time and location, how long the driver waited against the payer’s minimum wait, and the attempts to reach the rider. A photo of the door or building helps. Rules differ by contract, so the minimum wait belongs with the payer.
When a van went out and nobody was transported, fee-for-service Medi-Cal calls that a dry run and has its own billing rule for it.
What it means for the provider
Repeated no-shows by the same rider are worth raising with the plan or broker. On the day, a no-show also frees the van, which dispatch can use for a will-call.
Going deeper: No-shows and dry runs in NEMT: what counts, what payers pay for, how to document them
Related terms
- Dry runA dry run is a trip where the vehicle responds to the call but no one is transported, for example because the rider was a no-show or had already left.
- Pickup windowThe pickup window is the span of time around a scheduled pickup that counts as on time, for example 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after.
- Trip leg (A leg and B leg)A trip leg is one one-way ride from a pickup to a drop-off.
- Where’s My RideWhere’s My Ride is how a rider or caregiver finds out where the van is and when it will arrive.