Our Mission

Five Star Special Transport exists to provide Clark County residents wheelchair, non-emergency medical, and other special transportation, all with five star service.

Our STORY

Five Star Special Transport was founded by Drew and Gregg Swanson. As a certified professional guardian, Gregg had experienced first-hand most of the wheelchair and disabled person transportation services available. That revealed to Gregg that there is a great opportunity to provide this service with excellence. That insight, combined with Drew’s entrepreneurial spirit and heart for serving people, led them to begin to plan a special transportation service that just does it better. After months of careful planning and testing to ensure the service was up to our standards of excellence, Five Star Special Transport began public operations in December 2019. Gregg has since stepped outside of an ownership role, and now Drew leads the Five Star Team in accomplishing its mission to provide wheelchair and other special transportation services, all with five star service! We are proud to report that, since its founding, Five Star Special Transport has earned best non-emergency transportation (NEMT) company in Clark County in 2023 and 2024, along with securing the highest rated NEMT company on Google in Yelp in the Clark County area! We are excited to continue our mission for years to come!

Our Team

We believe that the most important part of delivering five star service is hiring the right people to be a part of the team. When we hire anyone, we are not just hiring them to do a job, we are hiring them to be a part of our mission. We can proudly say with full confidence that our drivers, our dispatchers, and our billing department care about our clients, first and foremost, and everything else that they do stems from that.

Five Star Special Transport takes a top down approach. Meaning, we believe in treating our team extraordinarily well, and in so doing, our team will treat our clients extraordinarily well. We are proud to say that our employees are paid more than any other NEMT company in our area, can receive healthcare benefits if they are full time, and are treated with high respect, being the great asset that they are. By choosing Five Star Special Transport, you are not only supporting five star service for you and your loved ones, but five star employee treatment, which is very hard to come by in our field.

FAQ

How do I request a ride? The easiest way for you to request a ride is right here online by clicking the “Request a Ride” button. Once you put in a request, you will receive a confirmation of the ride and a link to pay online once it is approve. Though, if you would like, you can request a ride by emailing us, texting us, or calling us, and we will get back to by the end of the business day.

How does payment work? We require all private pay individuals to pay for rides 24 hours before our service. The easiest way to pay for your ride is to visit our “Payment“ tab, or click on the button throughout our website titled “Pay My Bill“. You can also give our office a call and select the “billing“ option and pay over the phone. If you are an organization, you are eligible to make an account with us and we can invoice you after our service. When you make payment, you will receive a receipt for your payment, and after your service is completed, you will receive a receipt showing the details of the service provided.

Can you bill insurance? We cannot make a claim to your insurance provider for you.  If you are scheduling your own transport with us, you are responsible for payment.  Some insurance providers do allow you to schedule non-emergency medical transportation through them (or their broker).  We are contracted with multiple brokers, like Community in Motion for Medicaid-paid transportation.  If you would like us to provide your transport but your insurance requires you to go through a broker, you can request that they schedule with us and they may be able to arrange it. We are also able to send you an itemized receipt after our service that you may be able to use to be reimbursed by your insurance. Though, we cannot guarantee that they will.

I use Medicaid. Can you bill Medicaid? If you would like Medicaid to pay for your ride, you must arrange it through Community in Motion at 360-694-6577. We are contracted with Community in Motion and you can request to be your provider.

How much notice do you need when scheduling a ride? The more notice we have, the better! If you request a ride 4 or more days in advance, you are in the green. If you request a ride 2-3 days in advance, you are in the yellow. If you request a ride 1 day or less in advance, you are in the red. However, we can sometimes do same day appointments! You can call us and press option 0 and we have an automated message that tells you our availability for that day and the next! Keep in mind, our availability displayed by the recording is assuming it is in Vancouver, WA. If you are a hospital needing help with discharges, we usually keep some time slots open in the afternoon to help you with that.

Do you serve people outside of Vancouver, WA? Yes! However, all of our flat rates are unique to Vancouver, WA. Also, if you live outside Washington State, unfortunately we are unable to serve you. But, if you live in Washington State and need transportation somewhere outside of Washington, we can serve you for an additional cost. You can contact us for a quote.

Do you transport people to places other than their doctor’s appointments? Absolutely! We are happy to take our clients wherever they need/want to go as long as it has been planned in advance.

Am I able to ride along with someone you are transporting? Yes. There is no additional cost to this.

I don’t have a wheelchair. Can you supply me with one? We can supply you with a wheelchair for an additional $15/trip leg. However, if this is a round trip ride and you are needing our wheelchair for your appointment, we will need to charge $1.25/minute, as our driver will need to wait at your appointment. The other option is you can use our wheelchair for transport, but then transfer into a wheelchair at the clinic to avoid the wait time costs.

Are you able to help lift clients? Unfortunately, no. We can offer a step stool, a hand to hold on to for balance, and a spotter in the event they lose their balance, but we are unable to lift clients or maneuver their body in any way. Our wheelchair clinets also need to be able to sit up straight and keep themselves up straight.

I am in a wheelchair and I have steps going into my house. Can you get me inside? Your house will need to have wheelchair accessible ways for us to roll you inside. We are not able to carry you up stairs as that would be dangerous for you and our driver. However, if you just have one step going into your house, our drivers are trained to wheel you over the step. You will need to sign a liability waiver though. If you are able to walk up the stairs with just a hand for stability, we can also help you with that. If we come to your house and find that there is no way for us to safely get you inside, we will need to call paramedics to come help assist you.

When are you open for business? Our office is open from 8am-5pm Monday-Friday, but we do offer transportation from 6:30am-6:30pm Monday-Friday for no additional cost.

Are you able to transport extra large wheelchairs? We can transport wheelchairs up to 32 inches wide, wheel to wheel. We also have a 300lbs weight limit. This is due to our drivers having to push our clients up ramps.

I have a powerchair. Can you transport me? Yep! As long as you are comfortable driving your powerchair (or allowing us to drive your powerchair) up and down our van’s wheelchair ramp.

This is an emergency! Can you transport me to the ER? Unfortunately, we are not set up to respond to emergencies. While our drivers are first aid and CPR certified, those skills are only utilized as a last resort. If you are experiencing an emergency, please call 911 and request an ambulance.

Can you take me to an appointment and wait until I am done? Yes we can. Though, if you want us to wait we will need to charge $1.25/minute. For all quotes that we give you for rides outside of Clark County, since we plan to wait for you to get done anyway, our quote will include 1 hour of wait time.

How long does it take you to pick me up from my appointment? One of the things that we have done successfully to set ourselves apart from other companies is to minimize or completely eliminate wait times! If your appointment gets done on time, our driver almost always will be to you within 15 minutes. If your appointment gets done early or late, wait times may be longer.

I need to cancel my appointment! Will I be charged? We do not like charging you cancellation fees. We like to charge you for the services we actually give you! But, unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary. When you book an appointment with us, we reserve about an hour and a half time block on our schedule for you, if it is a round trip. We reserve more if it is a ride outside of Vancouver. If you cancel on us less than 24 hours before your appointment, we are often not able to replace your ride with another one. Our driver is then sitting around for that time making $25 an hour with no money coming into the business. Therefore, we do charge up to half the amount of the cost of your ride if you cancel on us less than 24 hours before your appointment to cover the cost to our business that resulted from your cancellation. Our booking system automatically sends you email and text message reminders of your appointment, so you should have ample time to cancel your appointment well before the 24 hour mark.