“As a critical component of the healthcare industry, Veyo is doing all we can during this [COVID-19] crisis to ensure access to care while continuously evaluating and implementing responsible policies that protect our constituents, our partners, our people and the public,” says Stan Sipes, whose leadership at Veyo has driven innovative advances for the company.
Since 2011-2012, tech companies like Lyft and Uber have been altering the transportation industry drastically, supplying consumers with ride-hailing services with a reliable transportation solution through the use of easy to use mobile devices. While the taxi world worked to defend its turf through regulatory means, many others took advantage of the new vertical and leveraged it for the betterment of society. One of these people is local Valley innovator Stan Sipes.
A long-time business veteran and now the executive vice president of Business Development for Veyo, a non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) broker, Sipes has been at the forefront of this ride revolution for nearly a decade. At the turn of the 2010s when he was with Total Transit — a Phoenix-based transportation management firm — Sipes realized the industry was undergoing a cosmic shift. Consumers were expecting a higher level of service and more personal transportation model, thanks to the innovations occurring in the rideshare space. When Total Transit split off its non-emergency medical transportation service into Veyo in 2015, Sipes oversaw the business development efforts at Veyo. Since then, he’s helped grow the company from $60 to $200 million in revenue in just over 2.5 years.
Founded in 2015, Veyo has quickly become one of the nation’s largest NEMT brokers, providing patients with medically necessary transportation through its proprietary technology and industry-first Medicaid designed rideshare model. In just under five years, the company has expanded to service more than 30 million trips across eight states. Sipes’ understanding of the NEMT industry and unique background in logistics and transportation has driven him to build a Business Development process that targets a potential client’s unique needs and helps them understand the impact of working with Veyo. In NEMT, transitioning to a new broker requires several months of implementation and preparation, leading to transition anxiety and an extended sales cycle. Sipes has been instrumental in crafting the Veyo story in a way that speaks to these concerns and helps focus potential clients on the long-term outcomes, not the short-term pain of transition.
Veyo is the only NEMT broker with the experience of utilizing a Medicaid-designed and managed rideshare fleet that is specifically designed for the unique needs of this population, which puts the company in the unique position of having the experience of both an NEMT broker and Transportation Network Company (TNC). Veyo’s approach to utilizing rideshare fleets within Medicaid offers a higher level of service for the member, increased tracking and transparency for the plan, and cost savings from traditional NEMT brokers. As opportunities arise across the country, in states such as Arizona, to utilize consumer ride-hailing companies within Medicaid and healthcare, Veyo is uniquely positioned to integrate this fast responding capacity into their network as appropriate.
With Sipes’ guidance over the last few years, Veyo has invested major resources to develop and launch several technologies and software innovations that impact efficiencies, improve transparency and facilitate the ease of use for members, health plan customers and healthcare organizations. Most recently, Sipes was involved in the launch of Veyo’s newest transportation management software, RideView, which will continue to roll out throughout the country in 2020. RideView allows healthcare providers who serve Medicaid populations the ability to easily book and manage transportation through an easy-to-use interface, creating a real-time patient appointment management capability that had never existed. Ensuring the company’s patients have access to care has had immediate and positive impact on its outcomes.
With these and many other operational and technology innovations, Sipes and his team are embarking on another accelerated growth path across the country, which will enable millions more of Medicaid and Medicare Advantage members to realize the reliability, transparency and quality of Veyo’s solution. A renewed focus on social determinants of health (SDoH) and their positive impact on an individual’s wellness has renewed the focus on how technology can impact healthcare for the better. Veyo is working with several managed care organizations on the details of future partnerships, and Sipes expects these partnerships to continue their growth in years to come as Medicaid and Medicare Advantage plans continue to expand.
Veyo Moving Forward
Stan Sipes, executive VP of Business Development, projects that 2020 will be a big year of growth for Veyo as the company is recognized as the NEMT broker with experience and capability within the space. Sipes understands the differentiators Veyo has created and is determined to see those efficiencies continue to take root in Arizona.
In addition to launching RideView, Veyo is heavily invested in several technologies that will support its operational best practices. A few of these technologies are:
Proactive trip management tools that take advantage of real-time tracking to ensure any trip that may be in jeopardy is routed to another transportation provider.
Improved real-time support for Veyo’s dedicated rideshare drivers.
Improved member communication process that allows members to better control information regarding upcoming trips.
Did You Know?
In total, Veyo has 3,600 independent driver-providers (IDPs) in its fleet who have completed more than 8.6 million trips.
