NEMT Credentialing in California

California runs a hybrid model, and enrollment reflects it. Medi-Cal covers roughly 14.9 million enrollees (per KFF Medicaid state fact sheets, 2025), split between fee-for-service and managed care. Step one for everyone is PAVE — the Provider Application and Validation for Enrollment system at DHCS — which makes you a Medi-Cal-enrolled transportation provider. That alone lets you serve fee-for-service members. To carry managed-care trips, you then credential with the transportation broker each health plan contracts — commonly Modivcare or MTM, American Logistics (ALC) on Molina, or Call the Car. And since March 27, 2025, every NEMT vehicle needs a Vehicle Safety Systems Inspection (VSSI) certificate from the Bureau of Automotive Repair — the old brake-and-light certificate no longer counts. This page walks the whole sequence — PAVE, vehicles and VSSI, drivers, and per-broker credentialing — and shows where we take the paperwork off your plate.

This is the California quirk that is catching fleets off guard right now. Since March 27, 2025, every Medi-Cal NEMT vehicle needs a Vehicle Safety Systems Inspection (VSSI) certificate from the California Bureau of Automotive Repair — and the older brake-and-light certificate is no longer accepted. A van without a current VSSI certificate cannot be credentialed to run NEMT trips, full stop. On top of VSSI, each vehicle still needs current California registration and title, the vehicle listed on your auto liability policy, and — for wheelchair and gurney vehicles — proof the securement equipment and ADA accessibility meet the standard. We keep a VSSI status and expiration for every van in your fleet alongside the rest of the vehicle file, so a lapsed inspection never quietly pulls a vehicle off the road. Confirm the current inspection details with the Bureau of Automotive Repair, since program requirements change.

PAVE gets you fee-for-service; the managed-care trips live behind the brokers. Each California health plan contracts its own transportation broker, so covering your service area usually means credentialing with more than one — Modivcare, MTM, American Logistics (ALC) on Molina, or Call the Car, depending on the plans in your counties. Each broker has its own application, its own document standards, and its own re-verification cycle, and enrollment is not a one-time form: insurance renews annually, driver screenings run on a cycle, VSSI and other vehicle inspections expire, and both DHCS and the brokers re-verify providers. The providers who lose trips rarely fail the first application — they fail a renewal nobody was watching. We run your credentialing across PAVE and every broker as a calendar, not a fire drill, so you stay accepting trips without an accidental deactivation. For the portal-level detail on a specific broker, see the pages below.