Rachel Scholler - NEMT Growth Consultants

09/03/2026

Some of the best marketing I ever did for my NEMT company didn't cost anything.

It wasn't a Facebook ad.

It wasn't a fancy campaign.

It was relationships.

One of the questions I ask new providers is:

**If someone in your community needed transportation tomorrow, who would tell them about your company?**

If you can't answer that question yet, that's where I'd spend my energy.

Introduce yourself to discharge planners.

Meet social workers and case managers.

Visit assisted living and senior communities.

Build relationships with rehabilitation and behavioral health facilities.

Get involved in your community.

And then do something even more important:

**Be worth referring.**

Answer the phone.

Communicate.

Show up when you say you will.

Take good care of people.

Because getting someone's first referral is marketing.

What you do with that referral determines whether you get the next 100.

You don't need everyone in your community to know your company.

You need the **right people** to know it — and trust it enough to put their own reputation behind recommending you.

09/01/2026

What NEMT Operators Should Be Watching This Week:

NEMT operators: hospitals are being given money to start transportation programs. Pay attention.

Last week, I talked about rural healthcare funding increasingly being directed toward transportation.

This week, Alabama gave us a much clearer picture of what that can actually mean.

On August 24, Alabama announced 138 rural-health grants totaling more than $144 million — and several of those awards specifically fund non-emergency transportation.

A few examples:

$2 million to DCH Health Care Authority to develop a dedicated NEMT program serving 10 west-Alabama counties.

$150,000 to Gadsden Regional Medical Center for a wheelchair-accessible van and a full-time driver.

$490,800 to Lakeland Community Hospital to establish non-emergency transportation alongside telehealth.

$1.12 million to Touchstone Transport for a wheelchair-accessible electric-vehicle NEMT program.

And Sylacauga Healthcare Authority received funding specifically to add scheduling, routing and ride-coordination technology to an existing transportation program.

Think about what those awards are actually paying for:

Vehicles. Drivers. NEMT operations. Scheduling technology.

And Alabama isn't an isolated example.

On August 27, Georgia announced another $93.3 million in Rural Health Transformation investment supporting 87 rural hospitals, with transportation and expanded care networks specifically identified as part of the initiative.

We have also been watching rural-health transportation developments in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

At this point, I think there's a bigger message here for NEMT operators:

Your next major customer may not be a broker.

It may be a hospital, health system or healthcare organization that has just received funding to solve a transportation problem.

That doesn't mean every NEMT company can simply apply for these grants. In many cases, the money is being awarded directly to hospitals and healthcare authorities.

But those organizations now have another challenge:

They have to actually provide the transportation.

Before you assume the only opportunity is another broker contract, start looking around your own market.

Which hospitals and healthcare organizations received rural-health funding?

What are they being funded to accomplish?

Are they planning to buy vehicles and build an entire transportation operation themselves?

Or could an established NEMT provider become part of the solution?

For years, our industry has talked about transportation as a barrier to healthcare access.

Now real money is being allocated to solve it.

NEMT operators should be paying attention to where that money is going — because the opportunity may be much bigger than another trip appearing on a broker portal.

Photo from my years owning and operating Lakeshore Transportation.

08/31/2026

One of the most expensive things a new NEMT owner can do is sit and wait for a broker contract.

I see it all the time.

The business is formed.
The vehicle is purchased.
Insurance is active.
Everything is ready.

And then... they wait.

Sometimes for months.

My advice has always been different:

**Build your business while you wait.**

Go meet the people in your community who already need transportation.

Hospitals.
Assisted living communities.
Rehabilitation facilities.
Behavioral health providers.
Senior communities.
Case managers.
Social workers.

Start building private-pay relationships.

Yes, those relationships can generate immediate cash flow. But they're valuable for another reason too.

While you're marketing for private pay, you're also:

• Learning how to sell your service
• Building your reputation
• Developing referral relationships
• Testing your operations
• Learning what your market actually needs
• Creating revenue that isn't dependent on one payer

Then, when the broker contract eventually comes, you're adding it to an existing business instead of hoping it will create the business for you.

Broker contracts can absolutely be valuable.

I just don't believe they should be your starting line.

Your business starts when **you** start building it.

Send a message to learn more

08/28/2026

One of the things that continues to surprise me as I spend more time around highly successful people is just how generous they are.

Generous with their knowledge.

Generous with their connections.

Generous with their encouragement.

There's very little sense of, *"I figured this out, so you need to figure it out too."*

Instead, it's:

Here's what worked for me.

Here's what I would do differently.

You need to meet this person.

Have you thought about doing it this way?

And perhaps most importantly — they genuinely want to see the people around them win.

I didn't always experience that kind of support growing up, so I don't think I'll ever stop noticing the difference.

I've also spent a lot of my life with a tendency to shrink myself — to downplay what I've accomplished, question whether I'm doing enough, or make myself a little smaller in certain rooms.

It's hard to keep doing that when you're surrounded by people who refuse to let you.

This photo was taken at the VIP dinner during the Social Media Revenue Summit last weekend, and looking at it afterward reinforced something I've been learning over the last several years:

**Proximity matters.**

The people you spend time with influence what you believe is possible.

They challenge the size of your thinking.

They expose you to ideas you wouldn't have encountered on your own.

And sometimes a 15-minute conversation changes the way you look at something you've been thinking about for months.

I've built and sold two successful companies. I've spent more than two decades as an entrepreneur. And I'm probably more committed to learning today than I was when I started.

Because the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.

I'm incredibly grateful for the people who share what they've learned, challenge me to think bigger, and remind me not to make myself smaller.

And I hope I'm becoming that person for others, too.

08/28/2026

I’m excited to share that I’ve been appointed to the Sheboygan County Aging & Disability Resource Center (ADRC) Advisory Committee.

After spending 17 years in the non-emergency medical transportation industry, this opportunity feels especially meaningful.

Those of us in NEMT understand that transportation is about much more than getting someone from Point A to Point B. Access to reliable transportation can directly impact someone’s ability to receive healthcare, access community resources, maintain independence, and remain connected to the people and services they rely on.

For years, my work put me alongside older adults, individuals with disabilities, healthcare providers, families, and the organizations working to support them.

I’m looking forward to bringing the transportation provider perspective to the committee while also learning more about the challenges and resources affecting older adults and individuals with disabilities in my own community.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve Sheboygan County in a new capacity and looking forward to getting started.

08/26/2026

Just a reminder- you're mindset is so important

08/26/2026

What NEMT Operators Should Be Watching This Week 👀

There’s money moving into rural medical transportation — and NEMT operators should be paying attention.

Last week, CMS announced $4.2 million specifically to expand medical transportation in West Virginia**, with the goal of increasing capacity, availability, and geographic coverage.

Pennsylvania also received $35 million in rural health funding**, with emergency and non-emergency medical transportation specifically included among the areas being strengthened.

Why does this matter?

Because transportation is increasingly being recognized for what those of us in NEMT have known for years:

You can’t improve access to healthcare if people can’t get to healthcare.**

For operators, I think there’s another important lesson here.

Medicaid broker trips are not the only opportunity in NEMT.

Rural health systems, hospitals, county programs, community organizations, facility partnerships, and grant-funded transportation initiatives can all create opportunities — especially in communities where transportation continues to be one of the biggest barriers to care.

If you operate in a rural market, this is the time to start paying attention to where healthcare-access dollars are being allocated in your state.

Don't wait until an RFP or opportunity is announced to start building relationships.

Know your local hospitals.
Know your county.
Know your rural health organizations.
Know where the transportation gaps are.

The operators who understand the healthcare ecosystem around them are going to be much better positioned when these opportunities emerge.

**NEMT isn't just transportation. It's healthcare access.**

08/25/2026

An unexpected honor from a weekend I went into expecting simply to learn and grow.

Last weekend, I was presented with the **Excellence & Impact Award** at the Social Media Revenue Summit 2026 ( )

For nearly two decades, I've built businesses, made plenty of mistakes, learned some expensive lessons, and figured out a lot along the way.

Those experiences are ultimately what led me to consulting.

When I started NEMT Growth Consultants, the goal was never just to tell other transportation providers what they should do. It was to share what I had actually learned from building and operating an NEMT company myself — what worked, what didn't, and what I wish someone had told me earlier.

That's why the word **impact** in this award means so much to me.

If something I've learned helps another business owner avoid a costly mistake, see an opportunity differently, build a stronger company, or simply realize there's another way to do something, that's impact.

And that's something worth continuing to work toward.

I'm incredibly grateful to Matt Loop, and the FAM community for this recognition and for a weekend filled with great conversations, new perspectives, and people who continue to challenge me to grow.

Very honored to bring this one home. ❤️

08/24/2026

Apparently no one told this petunia it wasn't supposed to grow here.

It came up through a crack in my patio, underneath a table. No intentional watering. Almost no sunlight. And petunias are annuals here in Wisconsin.

And yet...there it is.

It reminded me a little of the NEMT operators I've watched build successful companies in conditions that were anything but ideal.

Broker changes. Rate pressure. Driver shortages. Regulations. Vehicles breaking down at exactly the wrong time.

Somehow, you figure it out.

Sometimes the conditions don't have to be perfect. You just have to be stubborn enough to keep growing.

08/17/2026

A strange thing happens as your business grows...

You start saying no more than you say yes.

And if you're at all like me, you sometimes feel guilty for saying no.

Early on, every opportunity feels like one you can't afford to pass up.

As you gain experience, you realize not every opportunity is actually an opportunity.

Some are distractions.

Some aren't the right fit.

Some ask you to compromise the quality of your work.

I've learned that protecting your time isn't about working less.

It's about making sure you're spending your energy where you can make the greatest impact.

Ironically, saying "no" has become one of the best business decisions I've learned to make.

Has saying "no" ever opened the door to something better for you?