Colorado Opens Statewide NEMT Provider Contracting Ahead of MediDrive Transition
Provider contracting began September 1. The statewide broker model arrives January 1, 2027 — operators who wait will be out of network on day one.
DENVER — Colorado's Department of Health Care Policy and Financing has opened statewide NEMT provider contracting for all enrolled providers, effective September 1, 2026 — the on-ramp to the state's transition to a single statewide broker, MediDrive, on January 1, 2027.
The sequence matters more than the headline. Between now and January 1, every Colorado NEMT provider that intends to keep carrying Health First Colorado (Medicaid) trips needs to be contracted and credentialed with the incoming broker. Operators who assume existing state enrollment carries over will learn otherwise the first week of January, when trip assignment starts flowing through the new broker's network.
What operators should be doing now
- Start the broker credentialing file now — not in December. Typical broker packets require corporate documents, vehicle rosters, driver rosters with background checks and training records, drug-and-alcohol policy, and insurance certificates naming the broker as certificate holder (and frequently additional insured).
- Check your insurance limits against the new requirements before renewal, not after. If the incoming broker requires higher auto liability limits than your current policy carries, a mid-term limit increase is a much harder conversation than a renewal-time one.
- Get rate schedules in writing and model your routes against them. A statewide broker's rates are effectively take-it-or-leave-it; the question is whether your cost structure works at those rates.
Colorado's move continues the national drift toward consolidated, single-broker state contracts — see our consolidation analysis — and it is the transition to watch this winter: a whole state's operator base re-credentialing at once.
Source: Colorado HCPF — Non-Emergent Medical Transportation.