- 1
Confirm your dialysis schedule
Most patients dialyze 3x/week (e.g., Mon/Wed/Fri) on a fixed shift.
- 2
Ask your center for a standing order
Medicaid: ask your dialysis center or doctor’s office to request a standing order through MAS so you don’t re-book every trip.
- 3
Name DachiPlus as your preferred provider
Ask the center to list DachiPlus on the standing order. MAS considers that choice once the right type of transportation is set.
- 4
Same time, reliable pickups
We aim for consistent timing and drivers for your recurring schedule.
- 5
Wheelchair-accessible if needed
Door-through-door help and accessible vehicles for patients who need them.
- 6
Round-trips, every session
We bring you home after treatment — no scramble for a return ride.
Why does dialysis transportation require a specialized approach?
Hemodialysis patients typically attend sessions three times per week on a fixed schedule — often Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Missing a session is medically serious: toxin and fluid buildup can cause emergency hospitalization within 48–72 hours of a missed treatment.
This means dialysis transportation has requirements that casual rideshare or family carpools often fail to meet consistently: early morning availability (many centers start at 6–7 AM), zero cancellation tolerance, the ability to handle patients who are fatigued post-treatment, and door-through-door service for patients with limited mobility after sitting on a machine for three to four hours.
How do standing orders work for dialysis transportation in New York?
A standing order is a request for prescheduled Medicaid transportation to recurring appointments at the same place, usually on the same days and at the same times each week. Dialysis is the textbook case. Once it is approved, you don't call MAS before every trip. A standing order lasts up to six months and does not renew on its own.
Under the state's Standing Order Policy (effective October 1, 2020), only your medical provider's office can enter a standing order, using the MAS online system. MAS does not accept standing orders from members, family members, or transportation companies. Here is what that means for you:
- Ask your dialysis center or doctor's office to request a standing order through MAS. A social worker, nurse, or scheduler at the center usually handles it.
- Confirm your treatment days (e.g., Mon/Wed/Fri), your chair time, and your pickup address with them.
- Ask them to list DachiPlus as your preferred transportation provider. The request form has a field for it.
- Ask when the order starts and when it ends. The policy asks providers to enter it at least three business days before it starts.
- Before it ends, ask the center to renew it, because it does not renew on its own.
DachiPlus cannot book, change, or pause your Medicaid trips. MAS and your medical provider handle those. What we can do is drive the trips MAS assigns to us, on time, with drivers who know your center.
Standing orders are also the answer for working family caregivers: once the order is active, your parent's three-times-weekly rides are scheduled without you leaving work to drive or re-booking each trip. Ask the center to name your preferred provider on the order so the same trained drivers can become familiar faces. If cost is the barrier for private-pay riders, the American Kidney Fund's Safety Net Grant counts transportation to dialysis as an eligible expense — your center's social worker can help you apply.
Does Medicaid cover dialysis transportation in New York?
Yes. Dialysis is one of the most consistently covered trip types under New York Medicaid's NEMT benefit. As long as you are an active Medicaid member and attending a licensed dialysis center, the trips are covered — no copay, no cost to the patient.
This applies to Medicaid, Medicaid Managed Care (Healthfirst, MetroPlus, Fidelis, etc.), HARP, and dual-eligible (Medicare + Medicaid) members. The only requirement is that the transportation be arranged through MAS and that you have no other free transportation available.
Which dialysis centers does DachiPlus serve on Long Island?
DachiPlus serves patients traveling to dialysis centers across Nassau and Suffolk County, including DaVita and Fresenius locations throughout Long Island as well as independent centers. Neither chain runs its own rides; our guide to whether Fresenius provides transportation explains what the clinic does offer. We also handle long-distance trips for patients who attend specialty dialysis programs at Manhattan or Queens facilities.
To see how far each Long Island town is from the nearest dialysis unit, and from one with an evening shift, read our Long Island Dialysis Access Report, built from Medicare's dialysis facility listing.
Why the ride home is the harder half
Most attention goes to getting to dialysis on time, but the return leg is where patients actually struggle. Fluid removal over a session commonly leaves people lightheaded, weak, cramping, or briefly hypotensive on standing — the reason a chair that felt fine on arrival can feel unmanageable on the way out. A rider who walked into the unit unaided may genuinely need an arm to the vehicle three hours later, and that is not a deterioration so much as the ordinary arc of a treatment day.
Book the return on that basis rather than on how you feel arriving. If you need assistance to the vehicle after treatment even though you do not before it, say so explicitly when the trip is arranged, because level of service is recorded once and applied to both legs. And allow for the unit's own timetable: a session that ends on schedule is still followed by needle removal and a period of holding pressure, so the moment you are clinically finished is not the moment you are at the door.
When the schedule changes — and it will
A standing order covers a fixed pattern, which is exactly its value and exactly its limitation. It does not adapt on its own. If your unit moves you from a Monday-Wednesday-Friday slot to Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday, or shifts your chair time by an hour, the transport authorisation stays where it was until someone changes it. Clinics reliably update their own schedule and, just as reliably, do not update your transport — the assumption runs both ways and neither party is at fault.
So when the unit changes your schedule, ask them to update your standing order in the MAS system as well, and call MAS about any trip in the next few days that needs to change. The same applies to a temporary change — a holiday week, a run of sessions at a different location, a hospital admission that interrupts the pattern. Getting a standing order running again after an admission goes quickly if you ask the unit to update it and slowly if you assume it resumed by itself, which is a common cause of a missed first session back.
What if I miss a dialysis transport pickup?
If your driver has not arrived within 15 minutes of the scheduled time, call DachiPlus at (516) 754-7777 immediately. We can check the driver's status and dispatch an alternative. Do not call the dialysis center first — call us, then notify the center.
For Medicaid trips dispatched through MAS: if there is a no-show, call MAS at 1-844-666-6270 to report it. Repeated carrier no-shows create a complaint record with MAS that can result in provider reassignment.