Just a tiny piece of an article from Politico.com. Seeing as how "helpful" they were after the Sin City shootings and all that. The sustainability of their loss-making is not clear as of yet but maybe Rats or John can elaborate on the bigger game they are playing.
But popular ride-hailing app-based services Uber and Lyft want a piece of the action, too. Lyft has staff dedicated to health care partnerships, and Uber has people focused on “mobility,” including access for the elderly and people with disabilities.
“On-demand transportation will really not just serve 18- to 25-year-olds who are out late at night," said Allison Wylie, an Uber employee who works to strengthen connections with the senior community. "It’s something that can improve the lives of people who lose their keys.”
Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is supplementing its paratransit program by using Uber and Lyft, which it subsidizes for qualified riders who don't need the full assistance that paratransit provides. Riders who need help getting to or into the vehicle, or who use a wheelchair, are advised to stick with paratransit.
Those limitations illustrate the growing pains the ride-hailing companies are experiencing as they seek to serve a population with more complicated needs than the nimble young urbanites they’d grown accustomed to dealing with. Both companies provide wheelchair-accessible vehicles, but only in a very limited number of markets—and even those markets often have far too few vehicles. Uber, for its part, launched an UberAssist option in 2015 for people who need additional help, where specially trained drivers can help passengers in and out of vehicles, but it’s still operating at a small scale.
Lyft is working on ways for seniors without smartphones to use the service, but for now, the most widely available option is available only on the large-font, simple-screen Jitterbug phone target-marketed to the elderly. Riders press “0” on the phone to talk to an operator, who then orders the Lyft. The company clearly sees this as a growth area: It built a new platform, called Concierge, that allows the operators to request rides for others, and it has also brought the Concierge service to senior care centers and hospitals, making it easier for those facilities to request a ride on behalf of their clients. Similarly, Uber noticed that a lot of people were requesting pickups for a location other than their own—indicating that they were for someone else, often a parent or grandparent—and smoothed that process, a new feature it internally calls “UberBounce.” But neither of those are a full solution for app-averse seniors.
AFFORDABILITY IS ANOTHER barrier. Seniors often don't have much discretionary income, and paratransit is heavily subsidized. Ride-hailing services are often cheaper than taxis, but the costs still add up, limiting mobility in a different way.
Some medical facilities and health insurers have started trying to pick up the burden themselves. Older patients miss subspecialty doctor appointments as much as 30 percent of the time, according to AARP, which can lead to costly emergency-room visits and ambulance rides. Some health care companies believe that driving down those no-show rates is worth the cost of an Uber ride. Hospitals in New York City and the Washington, D.C., metro area have started facilitating ride-booking to non-emergency medical appointments, with Medicaid and other insurance plans sometimes picking up the tab. BlueCross BlueShield has identified “transportation deserts” where medical care is hard to access without a car and are offering patients in those areas free access to Lyft as a way to reduce the number of missed appointments.
A woman uses the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's paratransit, service, The Ride.
A woman uses the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's paratransit, service, The Ride. | Getty
The trend has been aided by a recent ruling by the Department of Health and Human Services that it’s not a “kickback” for hospitals to pay for patients’ transportation, which could dramatically increase the medical sector’s participation in paying for on-demand rides.
In a more ambitious experiment, AARP Foundation just announced a new pilot program with UnitedHealthcare, Lyft and the University of Southern California to give free, unrestricted rides to people at high risk of missing a medical appointment. Participants will get three months of free rides for any purpose—not just medical—and their physical activity will be tracked on a FitBit. It amounts to a bet that increasing mobility will have positive effects beyond just making the appointment. Similar pilot programs are being considered for Chicago and Atlanta next year, but as of now it’s just a tiny test group.
Uber has suffered a slew of PR disasters, including the devastating #DeleteUber campaign, giving the company an extra incentive to show some compassion by providing services to a more challenging population. But it’s not all charity: It sees expanding the service to serve seniors, a rapidly growing slice of the population, as a good business investment.
Is it sustainable? That's not clear yet; as big as they are, Uber and Lyft are still money-losing startups that compete with taxis by keeping their rates artificially low. For riders, those rates are a big part of the draw. The times she’s had trouble with the apps and ended up taking a taxi, Godby says she was floored by the high prices. And she finds that Uber and Lyft drivers almost always jump out to help her when they see her standing in front of the house with a walker.
“I’m not the bravest when it comes to making a change,” Godby said. “I don’t have many apps; I don’t want many apps. But it works.”
Tanya Snyder is a transportation reporter for POLITICO Pro.
