Formativ Health Teams Up With Lyft For Patient Rides

To help patients get rides to their medical appointments, Formativ Health is teaming up with Lyft. The health services company plans to work with Lyft to integrate the ridesharing company’s Concierge into its patient engagement platform (PEP), Formativ said in an announcement.

Formativ Chief Technology Officer David Harvey said in the announcement, “For many patients, access to reliable transportation can be the biggest hurdle in getting them to the doctor’s office. Formativ partnered with Lyft to enable our team of patient engagement specialists to book on-demand or scheduled rides for the patients we serve on behalf of our clients, addressing some of the negative social determinants of health, decreasing barriers to care and making life that much easier for patients.”

With the integration, the patient engagement specialists at Formativ will be able to make appointments for non-emergency rides for patients through the PEP. In addition, patients will not be required to have a Lyft account to use the service. And rides can be ordered both in advance or on-demand.

The news comes a few months after Lyft expanded its partnerships with healthcare providers by teaming up with Allscripts to reach approximately seven million patients and help people who can’t drive to their doctor’s appointments, USA Today reported. “The idea here is simply to give healthcare providers the ability to call a ride for a patient by pushing a button inside systems they already use,” Lyft Chief Business Officer David Baga told the paper in March.

For Allscripts, medical practices can hail multiple Lyft vehicles while sending text messages to patients with the details of their rides through a desktop application. Unless it’s otherwise arranged, medical practices will pick up the cost of the rides.

To better serve patients, Lyft works with many providers, including regulators, transportation brokers and technology partners. “It isn’t just about a healthcare provider deciding you need a Lyft; there are insurers and others involved in determining your care eligibility,” Baga noted.