This County is located in the Capital District of New York State. The Health Department for this County has the responsibility of educating Children with Special Needs from ages 0-5. In order to provide the educational service, the County is required to provide transportation for these children to and from the various educational facilities.
Challenge
The County has a goal of providing transportation at the lowest possible cost and yet to maximize reimbursement from the state of New York for those passengers that are classified as Medicaid.
Further, the reimbursement function involved very time consuming administrative tasks that was not possible with the small county staff
Results
VMC utilized 3 of its methodologies in order to successfully meet the County goals
- Cost control of transportation
Creating competition by making it feasible for the smaller transporters to “bid” on providing this service. Strategic computerization was employed so that the County was subdivided into zones which was treated as “mini- counties” for bidding purposes. Competition was created which helped dampen pricing and provided local employment for the smaller transporters. Also, larger transporters could be awarded the contract for more than one zone and therefore could also be successful in securing work with the County.The bus routes were created utilizing vehicle routing software. These routes simulated the least number of buses (budget) that should be utilized. This budget was then utilized by VMC to monitor the transporters throughout the year and for its review of the transporters monthly invoices. - Reimbursement
VMC utilized its customized cost accounting software package that is interactively connected to VMC’s vehicle routing software. By utilizing this Cost Accounting Software, VMC generated the transporters Invoices (before invoice was received from the transporter) and then was able to “populate” this data into calculating the cost by student, by bus route, by school facility, and by transporter (vendor) Reconciliation with the bus rosters (Driver Attendance Sheets) automatically occurred. This automated process resulted in the effective reimbursement process to occur. The County staffing level was not increased.