How to Start a NEMT Business in Georgia (2026)

Verida, which already ran the Atlanta and North NEMT regions, took over all five on April 1, 2026, and Modivcare, which had held Central, East, and Southwest, exited Georgia Medicaid [1]. Three of the five regions changed hands, and providers who had built their whole schedule on Modivcare woke up needing a new contract.

Te`ya Miles, the Atlanta operator behind That NEMT Girl, described the fallout on our podcast that May: “We have a whole pool of providers that have to pivot either their entire business or they have to pivot their clientele in terms of who they’re marketing to. And you don’t ever want to be put in a position where you’re forced to make a decision for your business out of inconvenience.”

If you’re starting a non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) company in Georgia right now, that shakeup is the market you’re walking into, and it cuts both ways. The paperwork is simpler than it’s ever been: one broker, one credentialing process, one contract for the whole state. And the companies already here are busy redoing contracts and replacing lost trips, while the riders never stopped needing rides. This guide walks the path: what Georgia actually requires (less than you’d think), what the broker requires (more than the state does), and the order that wastes the least money.

I run Duet, a dispatch software company, and I talk to NEMT operators every week, Georgia included. This is the Georgia edition of our national guide on how to start a NEMT business. It cites the actual Georgia statutes, rules, and agency pages, and where something couldn’t be verified against a primary source, I say so. Requirements change. Confirm against the linked sources before you spend money.

The one-page checklist

Phase 0: know your demand

• Decide where your trips will come from: Verida volume, private-pay families, or a facility that already knows you.
• Call Verida provider relations with one question: where does the network need vehicles?
• Price a wheelchair trip with two local competitors. You want the market’s rates before you set yours.

Phase 1: business foundation

• Form your LLC with the Georgia Secretary of State: $100 online at ecorp.sos.ga.gov [2]. Annual registration renews between January 1 and April 1.
• Get a free EIN from the IRS. Never pay a third party for this.
• Register with the Georgia Department of Revenue through the Georgia Tax Center if you’ll have employees.
• Get the occupation tax certificate (the “business license”) for the city or county where your office sits. In the city of Atlanta that’s the Business Occupational Tax Certificate through the ATLBIZ portal, with a $191 registration fee for 2026 [3].

Phase 2: federal identifiers

• Apply for a Type 2 (organizational) NPI at NPPES, taxonomy 343900000X, Non-Emergency Medical Transport (VAN). Free, and usually issued within days [4].
• Check owners and drivers against the two federal lists of people banned from Medicaid work: the OIG exclusion list and SAM.gov. Recheck monthly; Verida checks these too.

Phase 3: vehicles and drivers

• Know your exemption line: a van capable of carrying 10 or fewer people, used exclusively for elderly, disabled, or medical-care passengers, is exempt from Georgia’s motor carrier certificate requirements [5]. Bigger or mixed-use vehicles aren’t.
• If your van is designed for more than 8 passengers including the driver, plan on a Georgia intrastate USDOT number and vehicle markings [6]. Confirm your setup with the Department of Public Safety (DPS) before buying.
• No CDL needed under 16 passengers. Budget for the driver requirements the broker sets instead: background checks, drug screens, MVR (driving-record) reports, and Verida’s nine named trainings.
• Insure to the broker’s bar, not the state minimum. The state floor is $100,000/$300,000/$50,000 for vehicles seating 12 or fewer [7]; the broker bar insurance agencies report is $1 million combined single limit auto plus $1M/$2M general liability. Get quotes before you buy anything.

Phase 4: the broker

• Apply to Verida’s network: Request for Qualifications form plus driver and vehicle lists at verida.com’s Georgia providers page [8]. Verida only takes new providers where a region needs more vehicles (enrollment is “need-gated”), so ask where the need is before you pick your county.
• Have your insurance certificates, driver files, and vehicles ready for Verida’s safety inspection and provider orientation.

Phase 5: the trip sources you control

• Set up a website and Google Business Profile built around the trips from Phase 0. Add Yelp and Facebook, especially if you’re skipping the broker.
• Start facility outreach and your private-pay presence the same week you apply to Verida, not after. Broker credentialing has a queue; relationships don’t.
• Offer friends and family free or discounted rides in exchange for honest Google reviews. Ten of them make strangers trust you.

Who pays for NEMT rides in Georgia?

Three sources pay for NEMT rides in Georgia: Georgia Medicaid through its statewide broker Verida, contracts with facilities like hospitals, dialysis clinics, and senior living communities, and private-pay families booking directly. Three payers, three different businesses.

Medicaid is the volume. Georgia’s Department of Community Health (DCH) runs NEMT as a broker program: DCH pays Verida a fixed monthly fee for every eligible member (a “capitated rate”), and Verida builds the provider network and pays providers out of that pot [1][9]. As of mid-2024, about 1.9 million Georgians qualified for NEMT rides, and the state reported spending about $131 million on them in fiscal year 2024 [10]. Georgians on Medicaid health plans use the same statewide broker for in-state trips, so one Verida contract reaches essentially all of Georgia Medicaid [9].

Facilities are the stability. Hospitals discharging patients, dialysis clinics with standing three-times-a-week schedules, rehab centers, senior living. Georgia’s dialysis population runs in the tens of thousands, and metro Atlanta alone hosts about 75 dialysis clinics. One facility that trusts you can fill a van’s whole day, and those checks kept arriving straight through April.

Private pay is the margin. Families booking directly for a parent’s appointments, at rates you set. In metro Atlanta, operator rate cards from 2023 put private-pay wheelchair trips around $100 with a base fee plus mileage - several times what short-haul broker work pays, with broker payouts for ambulatory riders (riders who can walk) averaging $1.25 to $1.45 a mile. That gap is why the playbook I give Georgia operators is broker for volume, private pay for margin.

Metro Atlanta’s 65-and-older population is projected to reach roughly 975,000 by 2030, about one in five residents [11]. Rural Georgia skews even older. In this state you’ll run out of trip sources long before you run out of demand.

Who is the NEMT broker in Georgia?

Verida is Georgia’s single statewide Medicaid NEMT broker. Since April 1, 2026, Verida serves all five of Georgia’s NEMT regions: North, Atlanta, Central, East, and Southwest. Modivcare no longer provides Georgia Medicaid NEMT [1].

Some history, because half the guides online still get this wrong. Georgia ended direct Medicaid billing for NEMT back in 1997, when the broker system went live [9]. For years the state was split between two brokers: Southeastrans, which rebranded as Verida in 2022, and LogistiCare, which became Modivcare. Georgia’s row in our national broker tracker has the full timeline. If an article names LogistiCare or MTM as Georgia brokers, or Modivcare as one you can still sign up with, it’s wrong.

Under DCH’s NEMT policy manual, the broker itself is generally barred from running the trips [9]. The program depends on companies like the one you’re about to start.

Can I bill Georgia Medicaid directly for NEMT?

No. Georgia NEMT is broker-mediated only. DCH’s policy manual is explicit: you sign a service agreement with the broker, and the broker pays you, with undisputed invoices due as agreed or within 15 business days [9]. There’s no fee-for-service lane (billing the state directly per trip), and per the manual, no separate Georgia Medicaid enrollment application for broker-network van providers. Your contract is with Verida.

A few 2026 guides claim you must also enroll through Georgia’s Medicaid portal (GAMMIS). The DCH manual doesn’t say that for broker-network van providers; those guides are likely mixing up NEMT with ambulance and other provider types that do bill Medicaid directly. Ask Verida provider relations during your application. It costs you one question.

What licenses does a NEMT business need in Georgia?

Less than almost any neighboring state, and this surprises people: most Georgia NEMT vans are exempt from state motor carrier licensing.

The state exemption: most vans qualify

Georgia law says a van that carries 10 or fewer people for pay, used only for riders who are elderly, disabled, or on their way to medical care or prescriptions, doesn’t count as a “motor carrier” at all [5]. A Georgia appellate court applied exactly that exemption to a wheelchair-modified van in 2015 [12]. A typical wheelchair van running only NEMT work needs no DPS motor carrier certificate, no limousine license, and no state NEMT permit, because Georgia doesn’t have one.

The exemption has edges, and they bite:

• Capacity. An 11-to-15 passenger van falls back into the Motor Carrier Act and needs DPS for-hire authority; which certificate class applies isn’t spelled out in DPS’s public documents, so get that answer from DPS in writing.
• Exclusive use. The moment you mix in non-medical work with the same vehicle, say airport runs or event shuttles, you’re arguably a regular for-hire carrier. Keep the medical work exclusive, or get a written determination from DPS.
• The USDOT number layer. Georgia is an intrastate USDOT number state (intrastate means you operate only inside Georgia). DPS says a vehicle designed for more than 8 passengers including the driver, run for pay, needs a Georgia intrastate USDOT number and name-and-number markings on both sides, even when it needs no certificate. Many raised-roof wheelchair vans cross that 8-passenger design line [6]. Georgia also applies the federal motor carrier safety rules to in-state carriers [6]. Whether the annual Georgia Intrastate Motor Carrier registration also applies to certificate-exempt vans isn’t public either, so before you register anything, call DPS’s commercial-carrier registration desk (the UCR-GIMC section) at 844-238-8097 with your exact vehicle specs. Crossing state lines is a different regime: interstate passenger work in 9-to-15 passenger vehicles run for direct compensation brings FMCSA registration and a $1.5 million federal insurance minimum [13].

The local business license

Then there’s the local layer: Georgia law lets every city and county levy an occupation tax, and nearly every metro jurisdiction does. You need the certificate for the jurisdiction where your office sits: the city’s if you’re inside city limits, the county’s only if your address sits outside any city (what Georgia calls unincorporated). In Atlanta, that’s the Business Occupational Tax Certificate, applied for only through the ATLBIZ portal. The fee is $191 for 2026, plus a tax based on your total sales; renewal is filed by February 15 and paid by April 1 [3]. Gwinnett charges an $80 flat certificate fee for unincorporated addresses; Cobb charges $55 per location; DeKalb publishes no fee schedule online, so call them (404-371-2155, option 5).

Te`ya’s advice on our podcast matches what I hear from Georgia operators who did this right: “What you should start is with your local county government… Every local county government is different. So for here in Atlanta, I have a business license with the city of Atlanta, but I also have my state articles of incorporation for my business.”

Two things to settle by phone

Two loose ends, because the sources genuinely don’t settle them. First, Atlanta’s vehicle-for-hire ordinance defines the term broadly enough to mention medical patients, and I couldn’t confirm from the current city code whether its permitting scheme reaches NEMT vans in practice; ask Atlanta’s Office of Revenue when you get your certificate. Second, whether private-pay NEMT fares are subject to Georgia sales tax is a gray area. Georgia taxes “in-state transportation of individuals” but excludes medical transports from its for-hire excise regime, and no Department of Revenue guidance addresses NEMT squarely. Ask a Georgia CPA before you set your invoice format. Neither should stop you; both are worth thirty minutes.

What insurance does a Georgia NEMT company need?

Plan around the broker’s requirement rather than the state’s. Georgia’s regulatory floor for for-hire passenger vehicles is $100,000 bodily injury per person, $300,000 per accident, and $50,000 property damage for vehicles seating 12 or fewer passengers, rising to $500,000 per accident above 12 [7]. That’s the floor for carriers under DPS authority, and most NEMT vans aren’t under DPS authority at all.

Nobody in this business insures at the floor, because the broker sets the real bar. Industry reporting on the Verida transition puts Georgia broker credentialing at $1 million combined single limit commercial auto for wheelchair and stretcher vans (one combined limit covering injuries and property damage), plus general liability of $1 million per claim and $2 million per year, with the broker named as certificate holder and additional insured [14]. Verida publishes no insurance minimums, rates, or payment terms (a July 2026 broker survey came up empty too), so treat those figures as commonly reported rather than official, and get the real numbers from your Verida provider relations contact before you bind a policy (binding is what makes coverage active).

What that costs: NEMT-specialist insurance agencies quote Georgia commercial auto at roughly $3,500 to $8,500 per vehicle per year for sedans and minivans, and roughly $5,000 to $12,000 for wheelchair vans, with first-year operators typically paying 30 to 50 percent more until their first clean renewal. Only a handful of carriers write NEMT, so use an agent who places medical transport risks every week, and price your insurance before you commit to a vehicle.

Two more lines for the budget. Georgia requires workers’ compensation once you regularly employ three or more people, and corporate officers and LLC members count toward the three even if they exempt themselves from coverage [15]. And facility contracts commonly ask for the same $1M/$2M general liability the broker does, so one policy usually covers both audiences.

What do NEMT drivers need in Georgia?

No CDL, for almost everyone. Georgia requires a commercial license only at 16 or more passengers including the driver [16]. Georgia also has no general chauffeur’s license, and the state’s for-hire endorsement program is written for taxi, limo, and ride-share drivers, not NEMT. (One exception: if you chose to operate under a limousine certificate, its rules apply.)

What your drivers will actually need is the broker’s list. Verida’s published driver requirements run: criminal background checks, current drug screens for owners and drivers, and MVR reports, plus nine named trainings: First Aid, CPR, Defensive Driving, Passenger Sensitivity, Customer Service, Spill Kit, Proper Lifting Techniques, Wheelchair Securement, and Driver Orientation [8]. Budget money and calendar time: these are real classes, and every driver needs them before your vehicles go live.

Can a NEMT company do stretcher trips in Georgia?

Yes, and this is one of Georgia’s advantages, because several states force stretcher work into ambulance licensing. Georgia law has an old category called an “invalid car”: a non-emergency vehicle used only for people who are sick, recovering, or can’t walk. The ambulance rules say invalid cars don’t need an ambulance license [17], and there’s no separate Department of Public Health (DPH) license or inspection category for them. Georgia Medicaid’s NEMT program covers stretcher van trips as a service level.

The line you can never cross: no medical care during transport. The moment a patient needs en-route monitoring or care, oxygen administration by an attendant, IVs, cardiac monitoring, that’s a licensed ambulance’s trip, with two medics aboard and DPH inspection requirements. Build the service line for stable patients only, and put that line in your dispatch protocols in writing.

Georgia also has its “1013” transports, the involuntary psychiatric holds named for the form. There’s no special state license for private 1013 transport. Under Georgia’s code, counties, facilities, and community mental health authorities arrange these trips, and a transport company gets the work through those arrangements [18]. (The code actually prefers family or friends when the patient can be moved safely.) Some Georgia operators build a premium niche here through facility relationships. Take 1013 work on only after your drivers have real miles behind them: an involuntary hold is nothing like a dialysis run.

How do you join Verida’s network in Georgia?

Joining Verida’s Georgia network takes four steps: a Request for Qualifications with your driver and vehicle lists, a need review and interview, vehicle inspections plus driver training, then orientation and contracting. One warning before step one: Verida’s enrollment is need-gated. Its own application language says it contacts you for an interview only if your region has need [8]. You can be fully qualified and still be told your region is full. That’s not a reason to skip Medicaid work; it’s a reason to ask early, pick your county with eyes open, and never build a launch plan that dies if the broker says “not yet.”

The sequence, as Verida publishes it [8]:

1. Request for Qualifications. The RFQ form on Verida’s site, with your driver and vehicle lists attached.
2. Need review, interview, and documents. If Verida has need in your region, it schedules an interview and requests your business documents: entity papers, insurance certificates, and the rest.
3. Inspections and training. Every vehicle passes a comprehensive Verida safety inspection, and every driver completes the nine trainings and screening checks.
4. Orientation and contracting. The owner completes Verida’s provider orientation, then you contract and go live.

Plan on weeks to a few months for the whole arc. One Indiana operator who runs three brokers describes Verida as the strictest of them: certificates of insurance issued to Verida’s exact spec, and roughly two to three weeks for the credentialing phase once need was established.

Three things to ask your provider relations contact directly, because none of them are published:

1. The actual insurance limits for your vehicle types.
2. Payment terms. Net 30 (they pay 30 days after your invoice) is the industry average, with net 21 to net 45 both out there. Get yours in writing and plan cash flow for it.
3. Whether a one-vehicle on-ramp exists. Verida’s predecessor historically required two vehicles but ran a one-van subsidiary program; whether anything like it survives isn’t public. Ask before you buy van number two.

Verida’s Georgia corporate office is in Villa Rica (678-510-4600), and its site lists regional provider relations managers. Verida also runs a separate Georgia DHS coordinated transportation program for aging and human services trips. That’s a different door from Medicaid NEMT, and a second revenue lane to ask about once you’re in-network.

Rates are a contract conversation, not a public schedule. In-network trips pay per your rate sheet; out-of-area and call-for-quote trips are where you have negotiating room. Ask to revisit your rates annually. Operators who never reopen the sheet leave years of increases on the table.

Don’t build the whole schedule on the broker

Everything above gets you into Georgia Medicaid work. Here’s the part the April transition should have tattooed on every Georgia business plan: broker volume is borrowed volume.

Te`ya again, from the same episode: “You may have put all your eggs into the basket of a broker, and then now they lost. I actually know a provider like that in Georgia right now. You grew with wheelchair and stretcher, and then boom, you lost that contract. You stopped doing the private-pay marketing.” The providers who sailed through April were the ones with facility contracts and private-pay customers that no state contract change could touch.

So run both plays from day one:

• Facilities first. Dialysis clinics, rehab hospitals, skilled nursing, senior living. Our guides on winning facility contracts and getting your first trip from a facility meeting walk the whole motion, and it works in Cobb County exactly like it works everywhere else.
• Private pay from your own phone, website, and Google Business Profile. Set your rates against the market: the roughly $100 Atlanta wheelchair trips from earlier run several times what short-haul broker work pays. The private pay guide covers pricing and marketing. And collect Google reviews before you need them: free or discounted rides for friends and family are a fair trade for the first ten.

In states with several brokers, operators spread the risk: run four or five broker contracts, and losing one stings without sinking the schedule. Georgia now has exactly one, so there’s nothing to split, and the facility and private-pay work above matters more here, not less. Broker trips are excellent filler and a fine on-ramp. They’re a dangerous foundation.

One operational note from the Verida workflow: trips come with manifests, portal claims, and per-trip documentation. Providers running dispatch software like Duet, which imports broker trip files alongside their facility and private-pay trips, keep one schedule instead of three. However you dispatch, don’t run the broker’s trips in one system and your own in a legal pad.

How long does it take to start a NEMT business in Georgia?

Plan on two to four months from first paperwork to first trips in Georgia, with insurance and Verida credentialing as the two slowest steps. A realistic sequence:

1. Weeks 1-2. LLC ($100), EIN, NPI, occupation tax certificate for your address. Call DPS with your vehicle specs (the USDOT question), call Verida with one question (where’s the need?), and price a trip with two local competitors so you know the market’s rates.
2. Weeks 2-4. Insurance quotes from an NEMT-savvy agent, at broker-bar limits. Pick your vehicle only after you know the premium, and let Verida’s region answer inform where you set up.
3. Weeks 3-6. Buy the van (used and mechanically sound beats new debt), equip to securement standards, get drivers screened and through the nine trainings. Submit Verida’s RFQ.
4. Weeks 4-12. While credentialing runs: facility visits, website, Google Business Profile, private-pay rate card.
5. First trips. However the first trips arrive, run them flawlessly and ask for the review. In this business the second trip comes from the first one.

Budget honestly: with Georgia’s insurance market, a wheelchair van, and the driver certifications, plan on $15,000 to $45,000 to put the first vehicle on the road legally, dominated by the vehicle and insurance. Anyone quoting $5,000 hasn’t priced Georgia commercial auto. And save 3 to 6 months of expenses on top: break-even comes months after launch, and a facility check can take 60 days to arrive.

FAQ

Does Georgia require a NEMT license?

No. Georgia has no state NEMT license, and vans of 10 or fewer persons used exclusively for elderly, disabled, and medical-care passengers are exempt from motor carrier certification [5]. Your real requirements are local (the occupation tax certificate), possibly a Georgia intrastate USDOT number depending on vehicle size [6], and the broker’s credentialing requirements.

Is Modivcare still a NEMT broker in Georgia?

No. Modivcare exited Georgia Medicaid NEMT on April 1, 2026; Verida holds all five regions [1].

Can I start a NEMT business in Georgia with one van?

Legally, yes. Whether Verida’s network will take a one-van provider isn’t published and may depend on your region’s need; ask provider relations first. Facilities and private-pay riders have no fleet minimums.

Do NEMT drivers need a CDL in Georgia?

Not below 16 passengers including the driver [16]. Plan for the broker’s background checks, drug screens, and trainings instead.

Are stretcher trips allowed in Georgia?

Yes, under Georgia’s invalid car exemption, for stable patients needing no medical care during transport [17]. Anything requiring en-route care is ambulance work.

Is the Georgia market worth entering in 2026?

The demand math says yes: about 1.9 million NEMT-eligible Medicaid members as of mid-2024 [10], a metro-Atlanta senior population headed toward one in five residents [11], and a provider network that just went through a forced reshuffle. The caution: enter with trip sources you control, because Verida only adds providers where it has need, and fewer people nationally may qualify for Medicaid in the coming years.

Key official sources

[1] Georgia Department of Community Health, Non-Emergency Medical Transportation: Verida statewide for all five regions effective April 1, 2026. https://medicaid.georgia.gov/programs/all-programs/non-emergency-medical-transportation

[2] Georgia.gov, Register an LLC. https://georgia.gov/register-llc

[3] City of Atlanta (ATL311), Business Occupational Tax Certificate. https://www.atl311.com/en-us/knowledgearticle/?code=KB0015172

[4] NPPES, National Provider Identifier application. https://nppes.cms.hhs.gov

[5] O.C.G.A. § 40-1-100(12), motor carrier definition and the ten-person medical-transport exemption. https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-40-motor-vehicles-and-traffic/ga-code-sect-40-1-100/

[6] Georgia Department of Public Safety, MCCD Fact Sheet #29, USDOT number requirements for Georgia intrastate carriers. https://dps.georgia.gov/document/publication/usdot-requirements-ga-intrastate-cm-carriers/download

[7] Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 570-38-4-.04, minimum required insurance for passenger carriers. https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/570-38-4

[8] Verida, Georgia transportation providers and Request for Qualifications. https://verida.com/georgia-providers/

[9] Georgia DCH, Part II Policies and Procedures for Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT), rev. July 2022. https://medicaid.georgia.gov/document/document/nemt-policy-manual-july-2022/download

[10] CMS: CMS-64 Financial Management Report data, federal fiscal year 2024 (Georgia NEMT expenditures), and the Medicaid Managed Care Enrollment report, data as of July 1, 2024 (Georgia NEMT program enrollment). https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/financial-management/state-expenditure-reporting-for-medicaid-chip/expenditure-reports-mbescbes

[11] Atlanta Regional Commission, aging trends in metro Atlanta. https://33n.atlantaregional.com/regional-snapshot/regional-snapshot-exploring-aging-trends-in-metro-atlanta

[12] Mornay v. National Union Fire Insurance Co., 331 Ga. App. 112 (2015), applying the NEMT exemption. Analysis: https://www.deflaw.com/insights/non-emergency-transport-vehicle-issues-under-georgias-motor-carrier-act/

[13] FMCSA, registration requirements for small passenger-carrying vehicles. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/registration/small-passenger-carrying-vehicles

[14] NEMT insurance market reporting on the Georgia Verida transition and premium ranges, April 2026. https://nemtinsurance.com/blog/georgia-medicaid-nemt-verida-broker-transition-2026

[15] Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation, insurance FAQs. https://sbwc.georgia.gov/frequently-asked-questions/workers-compensation-insurance-faqs

[16] Georgia Department of Driver Services, commercial driver’s licenses. https://dds.georgia.gov/georgia-licenses-ids-and-permits/new-license-id-or-permit/how-do-i-cdl-license

[17] Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. 511-9-2-.07, ground ambulance licensure and the invalid car exemption; O.C.G.A. § 31-11-2. https://rules.sos.ga.gov/gac/511-9-2

[18] O.C.G.A. § 37-3-101, transportation of patients under involuntary holds. https://codes.findlaw.com/ga/title-37-mental-health/ga-code-sect-37-3-101/

Last verified against the sources above in August 2026. Georgia requirements and broker arrangements change; check the primary sources before acting, and treat this guide as education, not legal advice.