Lyft and Unite Us Team Up to Reduce Transportation Barriers and Improve Access to Health and Social Care

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Mar 05, 2020, 09:00 ET

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, March 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Unite Us, the technology company that builds coordinated care networks to connect health and social care providers, announced today that it has joined forces with Lyft, the leading transportation network with national experience in healthcare, to provide ride-enabled referrals through the Unite Us platform.

Transportation is a barrier for people to access social care. Getting a ride to a job interview, a community center, a food pantry, or other community-based organization (CBO), is one step towards an individual meeting their goals. For healthcare, lack of transportation can lead to missed appointments, delayed care, and added stress when seeking care. In short, access to affordable and reliable transportation can have a meaningful impact on an individual's overall health and well-being.

By integrating Lyft's ridesharing services with Unite Us' coordinated care network, thousands of people across the country will have improved access to health and social care services. Coordinators and service providers who use Unite Us to make social care referrals can now order or schedule a Lyft ride on-demand to help patients access the care they need to live healthier lives. This national partnership will help meet the increasing demand for health and social care services in communities across the country.

"At Lyft, we recognize the role that transportation plays in unlocking access to health and social care, and we're proud to partner with forward-thinking healthcare organizations who share this goal," said Megan Callahan, VP of Healthcare at Lyft. "Our partnership with Unite Us represents a significant step towards improving community health and evolving the way that people can access critical medical and social care services. I'm excited to see the impact that a partnership like this will bring to local communities."

Unite Us works hand-in-hand to bring together community-based organizations (CBOs) that provide services to meet people's needs which impact health, such as income, education, and nutrition — known as social determinants of health (SDOH) — into a secure, seamless and accountable ecosystem to coordinate and track outcomes across communities. Lyft's entry into the healthcare sector began in 2016, when the rideshare company identified an acute and unmet need for on-demand non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) services. Today, Lyft partners with thousands of healthcare organizations — including leading health plans, transportation managers, and health systems — in all 50 states to reduce transportation barriers to care and improve access to programs and services that promote overall health.

"Unite Us has spent seven years building and refining coordinated care networks that align and connect our social and health care partners around a shared goal to improve care in communities," says Taylor Justice, President of Unite Us. "Our experience has enabled us to identify gaps in services–and transportation is a big one, everywhere," he adds. "This partnership with Lyft will enable our partners to do an even better job of ensuring that people get the services they need when they need them."

About Lyft:
Lyft was founded in 2012 and provides millions of rides daily as one of the largest and fastest-growing transportation networks in the United States and Canada. As the world shifts away from car ownership to transportation-as-a-service, Lyft is at the forefront of this massive societal change. Our transportation network brings together rideshare, bikes, scooters, car rentals and transit all in one app. We are singularly driven by our mission: to improve people's lives with the world's best transportation.

About Unite Us:
Unite Us is a technology company that builds coordinated care networks of health and social service providers. With Unite Us, providers across sectors can send and receive secure referrals, track every person's total health journey, and report on tangible outcomes across a full range of services in a centralized, cohesive, and collaborative ecosystem. Unite Us' dedicated team builds authentic, lasting partnerships with local organizations to ensure their networks have a solid foundation, launch successfully, and continue to grow and thrive. This social infrastructure helps communities transform their ability to work together and measure impact at scale.

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