At SafeRide Health, we set out to help the nation’s most vulnerable populations get to health care every day— primarily 120+ million Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plan members from all walks of life.
No matter where on the care continuum a health plan member is, getting to care can sometimes feel daunting and impersonal. However, when members discover commonalities and can personally relate to people they interact with along their care journey (such as their driver taking them to care), they are more likely to have better experiences overall. These commonalities range from having similar geographic backgrounds, workplace backgrounds, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and beyond. More than ever before, it’s vital for organizations like ours who serve diverse patient populations to have a high degree of cultural competency and diversity reflected in their own workforce, clients, partners, and vendors.
One key population that SafeRide is honored to serve among members of our partner health plans is our military veteran population. We also value and celebrate this population as we build our internal team and leading nationwide transportation provider network— this is evident with many current team members at different levels across our organization who are veterans themselves, embodying our mission and values daily.
"Our men and women in uniform learn very valuable skills during their military service. My military experience taught me the importance of being part of a team, taking ownership, and surviving/thriving under challenging circumstances. That is why at SafeRide Health, we value looking for team members with military experience who have gained this perspective while serving our country." – Brian Gebhardt, Chief Operating Officer at SafeRide Health
This year, as SafeRide expanded and solidified a nationwide network of high-performing transportation providers, we knew how critical it was to assemble the right team. To help build our team we engaged Service 2 Software, a Department of Defense Skillbridge Program that aims to place transitioning active military service members into full-time technology industry roles.
“SafeRide Health came to our organization with one common goal in mind: hiring high-quality veterans. Service 2 Software helped them do that with two direct hires right out of the gate, then we took our relationship to the next level to give transitioning service members an opportunity to grow into full-time roles. SafeRide Health has supported nine service members in pursuit of full-time roles in customer-facing roles.” – David Hester, CEO at Service 2 Software
Since each transportation provider in our nationwide network has unique opportunities to interact in person with health plan members every day, they have the potential to strongly influence member experience. Because of this, we deeply value having our transportation provider partners (including but not limited to drivers) represent a cross-section of key groups including veterans, minority, and woman-owned businesses. These are groups who health plan members can see themselves in, and also groups that we trust will get the job done correctly.
In a recent initial poll of our transportation network providers, over a third of respondents self-identified as being minority-, woman-, or veteran-owned. This is a testament to the dedication of our internal teams and partners towards building more diverse workforces to serve our country’s most vulnerable and diverse populations and ultimately foster outstanding member experience. SafeRide Health looks forward to continuing to support underrepresented groups, including veterans, with every group we work with across health plan members, internal teams, providers, and beyond.
Learn more about SafeRide Health's mission to impact health outcomes for America's most vulnerable patients.