Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health is turning to Uber to help get patients to its hospitals in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The new partnership connects Uber's API with MedStar's website, offering a button so that you can request a ride to your hospital appointment when you make it. Patients can find out how much it will cost and how long it will be to get an Uber ride, and will get reminders ahead of time to get them to their appointments on time.
MedStar, like other health providers, loses huge amounts of money from people missing appointments. It costs healthcare companies more than $150 billion a year according to Center for Health Affairs report, and healthcare groups have tried all kinds of ways to limit it. Last-minute transportation issues are often cited as the reason, which is why MedStar wants to circumvent the issue with Uber.
For now, patients will have to pay for the Uber ride themselves, but MedStar is now working on a way to get the rides covered under Medicaid and Medicare.
MedStar is just the latest place that Uber has extended its API. The company has put an Uber button in airline apps, Starbucks' app, Microsoft Outlook and even dating apps like Hinge. It's a natural way for the company to try and grow its user base. Presumably if someone who never used Uber before tried it out on the way to a hospital and enjoyed the experience, they would use it again. And of course if MedStar starts seeing big savings from the partnership, other healthcare providers might start putting out feelers for their own Uber button.
An Uber ambulance, especially if the company's work on self-driving cars pays off, could end up being how we all get to the doctor in the future.
