FAQ

Most of our trips originate or end in Pierce County or south King County. We transport elsewhere but there are additional charges (see information about unloaded miles).

Pegasus selects only the best drivers and vehicles:

• Room-to-Room Service: Our company culture encourages drivers to take extra steps to provide excellent customer service. This includes assisting our passengers from their rooms in the hospital or care facility and ensuring they are checked in at their destination.
• Our vehicles are modern cars and vans equipped with the latest safety features. Typically, we only take one passenger at a time to allow for greater comfort and any baggage or escorts.
• All our drivers are certified in CPR/First Aid, and complete bi-annual Defensive Driving and Passenger Safety/Securement courses. Drivers are also evaluated annually by a member of local law enforcement for adherence to traffic laws and safety.
• We provide time for drivers to ensure their vehicles are cleaned to our high standards. Exteriors and interiors are CLEAN. We understand that many passengers have compromised health when they ride with us and we attempt to provide vehicles that make
  our passengers feel comfortable and safe.

Private Pay is when a passenger or family/friend pays for transportation using a credit card or, by special arrangement, by cash or check. Reservations must be paid for prior to transportation. If for some reason, a trip must be cancelled, fees may be applied prior to a refund being issued.

Hospitals/facilities might pay when the passenger is a patient at the hospital, usually discharging or coming for a procedure. Care centers like Skilled Nursing Facilities and Post-Acute Care Centers may pay for a patient/resident to go to medical appointments and trips to dialysis and the hospital. Those facilities make the transportation arrangements directly with the NEMT provider.

Physicians or other care providers occasionally pay for transportation when the lack of
transportation would cause the patient to miss an important appointment or cause a
procedure/surgery to be rescheduled.

Insurance may occasionally pay for transportation. Certain providers, like Molina, pay for
transportation for their members through a broker. The broker makes the arrangement with the NEMT company and pays the service provider directly.

We do not. Most insurance does not currently pay for transportation. We are happy to provide a receipt if you pay privately for transportation and need proof of payment to get reimbursed by your insurance.

Insurance occasionally pays for transportation for its members. Typically, there is a third-party broker that takes the reservation from the member, and then sends the trip information to an NEMT service provider.

If you are paying privately, you may call Pegasus Lifts directly (253-336-6444) or use the online trip reservation form. When you call, you will need all the details of the trip request for the dispatcher to give you an accurate price quote or to book the trip: address of starting location and drop-off location (including any room or suite information, doctor’s name, etc.), whether a return trip is needed, what time the appointment is, how long the appointment will be, if the person needs to use our wheelchair, if there will be any additional passengers, whether our driver is expected to wait with the passenger or if it is ok to leave and come back.

If you make the reservation using the online form, we will call you to get payment information before we confirm the trip. There is not currently a way to pay for a trip online because our staff must first do the fee calculations and ensure that we can fit the trip into our schedule. When you use the online form, you will receive a confirmation email that we received your request.

This does not mean that your trip is booked, but rather that we received your request and will respond to you shortly.

If a hospital, facility, insurance or physician is paying for the trip, they will make the
arrangements.

Trip costs vary. There is a fee for each “pick-up”, a cost for mileage and tolls. Different types of transportation have different pick-up fees. Call for a quote, or see our website for specific charges.

Ambulatory: We have sedans and mini-vans for when a passenger can walk (using a walker is OK) to a car and get in themselves or needs help (wheelchair push) to get to the car but can transfer himself/herself into a car with no assistance.

Wheelchair: We have two different types of vans equipped to transport passengers confined to a wheelchair or those who cannot transfer to a vehicle seat easily: mini-van with rear-entry ramps or full-size van with wheelchair lift.

Stretcher: When a passenger is unable to sit in a wheelchair for their trip, a stretcher/gurney might be an option. We provide the gurney/stretcher and transport it to/from locations, but our staff is not able to assist with the transfer of passengers onto or off the gurney.

If we travel more than 15 miles from our base, there is a fee for when the passenger is not aboard (to get our vehicle to the pick-up location or back to base). For instance, if we travel to Olympia to pick up a passenger to transport him to Madigan Medical Center, there is an unloaded fee for Pegasus to travel to Olympia (mileage beyond the 15-mile radius), so there is a fee for 10 unloaded miles.

Pegasus Lifts (facebook: Pegasus Lifts Western Washington) is based in Puyallup, on Canyon Road. Pegasus Lifts is affiliated with Pegasus Lifts Northern Utah.

Pegasus is jointly owned by Cyndi Anderson Roberts and Jacob Brinkerhoff. Cyndi is a life-long Pierce County resident. She manages the daily operations of Pegasus Lifts in Washington. As the company Safety Officer, her husband Chris, a local law enforcement officer, conducts the driver annual safety evaluations.

Jacob is a partner in both Pegasus Lifts Washington and Utah. He currently resides in Utah but travels to Washington regularly.

Yes, we send vehicles to and from Madigan and elsewhere on JBLM for medical appointments, hospital discharges and other requested trips. Our drivers must stop at the Visitor’s Center for a pass so sometimes there is a time delay.