Uber Health launched two years ago with a simple, critical mission: help remove transportation as a barrier to care for those who need it most.

Core to delivering on that mission was building a product that enabled healthcare organizations of any kind to request transportation on behalf of patients in need, no matter their circumstances. This includes riders who are often elderly, low-income, and less likely to have the Uber app or a smartphone.

Uber Health has grown 300% year-over-year since launch, working with healthcare organizations across the country to help get patients where they need to be. Over the past year, we’ve worked closely with these 1000+ partners to map out pain points in the non-emergency medical transportation patient experience, and focused on building new features to help ensure that all healthcare riders can get to and from their appointments without stress or anxiety.

Today, Uber Health is proud to unveil these new patient-centric features which were designed to meet patients where they are and to make sure technology is never a limiting factor in getting someone the care they need.

A successful ride depends on a successful pick-up

Our new communication and digital pick-up features allow drivers and coordinators to stay in close contact and the rider pick-up to be simple and seamless.

Designated Pickup Spots: Patient pickups can be challenging, especially if a patient is located in a larger hospital campus, where all buildings may share the same street address. With designated pickup spots, healthcare providers can select specific pickup points at large hospitals and medical campuses, similar to the technology used on the rider app at airports and other large venues.

Designated Pickup Feature

Direct driver messaging: Healthcare providers can now message drivers directly on their driver app, ensuring drivers don’t need to toggle between the app and SMS notifications and making facilitating a pickup for a rider even easier.
Driver Messaging Feature
Serving a diverse set of patients
Our new flexible scheduling and notification features were designed to support the diverse communities of healthcare systems, including those who may not speak English or who don’t have a cell phone, and to help ensure patients are prepared for their ride.
Multilingual notifications: Healthcare providers can send pick-up instructions to riders in 44 different languages via SMS.
Languages feature
Scheduling for landline users: Ride details (car, driver name, license plate, etc.) can be shared via landline so that patients can connect with their driver quickly and easily once the ride arrives.
landline users feature
Peace of mind for patients and their circles of concern
New functionalities like auto re-ordering, location sharing, and round trips alleviate anxiety not only for healthcare riders, but also for their friends and family who want to ensure that that patients are getting to and from the care they need.
Round Trips: Healthcare providers will be able to request round trip rides for patients, ensuring they can get the care they need and find a ride back home afterwards.
Building off of our Uber for Business investment in enterprise offerings, these features were designed to help make requests for non-emergency medical transportation as easy and seamless as the requests for any other ride with Uber, for any profile of rider. Ultimately, this new experience will help ensure that patients can get to their appointments reliably, caregivers can focus on providing the best care possible, and healthcare organizations can reinvest their resources back into their businesses and increase their impact.
The new features began rolling out in late 2019 and will become widely available by April. For more details, or to find out how to partner with Uber Health, click here.