Call the Car Credentialing for California NEMT

Two things have to exist before the CTC form is worth filling in: an NPI, and a Medi-Cal provider enrollment that is at least pending. California handles that enrollment through PAVE, the DHCS provider application and validation portal at pave.dhcs.ca.gov, which is also where you add vehicles or file a supplemental change to attach non-medical transportation to an existing NEMT enrollment. Providers who apply to CTC with nothing in PAVE spend the next two months explaining themselves instead of running trips.

The company packet itself is the familiar list, done precisely: W-9 and EIN letter, Articles of Organization or business license, your California Public Utilities Commission charter-party permit, commercial auto liability and general liability certificates, workers' compensation. CTC handles limits and coverage requirements through its subcontractor process rather than a public rate sheet, so we confirm the current thresholds and the exact Certificate Holder and Additional Insured wording with CTC before anything is submitted. Certificate wording is the cheapest thing to get wrong and the most irritating to fix afterwards, because at that point you're waiting on your insurance broker rather than on CTC.

Here is where CTC differs from brokers that only want a PDF. Call the Car books vehicle credentialing inspections as calendar appointments through its own scheduling page, so somebody has to physically present the van. Turn up with a vehicle that isn't ready and you've burned the slot and the week behind it.

Before that, California's own rules have to be satisfied: current DMV commercial registration, the vehicle listed on your auto liability policy, a passing safety inspection, and, for wheelchair vans and litter vans, a standard brake and light certificate issued under the California Department of Consumer Affairs, which title 22 of the California Code of Regulations calls out at section 51000.30(d)(18)(G). Capacity counts too. State rules expect a wheelchair van to carry two wheelchair-seated passengers and a litter van to take a gurney, so a converted minivan does not become a stretcher unit because you fitted a cot in it. We stage the paperwork, book the inspection, and make sure the vehicle that arrives matches the one on the schedule and on the policy.

CTC is not a Southern California story only, and it isn't one payer. Its intake lines are split by client, and that list tells you where the trips are: AppleCare Medical Group, Blue Shield of California Promise, Blue Shield of California Medicare, Central California Alliance for Health, Heritage Victor Valley, IEHP, L.A. Care across Medi-Cal, Medicare D-SNP and Covered California, and San Diego Regional Center. Central California Alliance covers Mariposa, Merced, Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties. San Diego Regional Center serves San Diego and Imperial counties and funds transport for people with developmental disabilities, which is a different world from a managed-care NEMT trip and worth asking about separately if that's your area.

Two practical consequences. First, if your county's Medi-Cal plan doesn't use CTC, a perfect CTC application still gets you nothing, and a different broker credentials you instead. Second, CTC also moves low-acuity riders through mileage reimbursement, bus passes and rideshare partners, so a fleet applying with ambulatory curb-to-curb only is competing with a Lyft ride. Wheelchair, gurney and genuine door-to-door capability is what makes a subcontractor hard to substitute. In the free review we check which client runs your counties and which service levels are worth declaring on the form.

Not sure which CTC client runs your California counties? Call +1 (657) 777-0006, 24/7.

Once you are contracted and running trips, the claim side is handled separately in Call the Car billing.