Emergency Ride Home
Benefits

Kaiser Permanente—Los Angeles, California and vicinity

Kaiser Permanente, a major California health care provider, has an Emergency Ride Home program active at 17 sites in the Los Angeles area. The South Coast Air Quality Management District requires all employers in its jurisdiction with more than 250 employees to implement trip reduction programs. Only persons who use rideshare programs or transit riders are eligible to register for the service, and employees must be pre-registered to participate. Employees who have a personal emergency receive a voucher from their supervisor, who must verify the emergency, then contact the security personnel at their site to arrange transportation. Generally, trips less than 20 miles are made by taxi, and longer trips by rental car. Kaiser no longer allows rental car trips on Fridays because it was too difficult for many employees to return the cars on Saturday. Also, the security personnel can determine whether a long trip should be made by taxi instead of rental car—for example, if the employee feels too ill to drive, or if the employee needs to arrive at the destination as soon as possible.

The taxi or rental car company forwards the voucher to Kaiser for payment. Virginia Gonzalez, transportation analyst for Kaiser, said the only major difficulty with the program is that the companies often mistakenly send the bill to the facility where the employee was picked up, instead of to the central billing office. Kaiser staff meet with the companies annually to review the program and iron out such problems. The program has been in existence 12 years, with the same taxi and rental car companies as providers. Kaiser does not have contracts with either firm; the program was set up based on a mutual understanding of reimbursement and continues to operate that way. Taxi rides cost an average of $35, and rental cars average $45.

Ms. Gonzalez said that many employees do not take advantage of the program. Of a total of 35,000 employees at the 17 sites, fewer than 4,000 are registered. She estimated that employees use only 10 rides home per month; 15 rides would be an unusually high month. However, she said she felt that it serves as an incentive to encourage employees to sign up for rideshare programs. She also said Kaiser employees do not try to exceed their limit of eight trips per year, and only very occasionally a problem with a non-registered employee receiving a free ride. She noted that many employees with personal emergencies tend to make their own transportation arrangements and do not rely exclusively on the program.