Here is the thing that stops most people before they start, and almost nobody tells them: you cannot fill out the PT-1 yourself.

MassHealth will pay for your rides to medical appointments. The form that makes it happen is called a PT-1, and it has to be submitted online by your MassHealth provider, on your behalf. Not by you, not by your daughter, not by the senior center. The doctor's office does it.

Families spend weeks trying to find the form. There is no form for you to find. There is a conversation to have at your next appointment, and it takes the office a few minutes.

Who it covers

MassHealth Standard, CommonHealth and CarePlus members. It covers rides to medical appointments, and also to counseling and day habilitation, which people are often surprised by.

There is no age requirement, which makes this one of the very few free ride programs in Massachusetts that is not limited to people 60 and over. If you are 52 and recovering from a stroke, most town senior vans have nothing for you. This might.

The timeline, which is the part that matters

Two separate waits, and people confuse them constantly.

Approval takes up to three business days after your provider submits the PT-1. That is a one time thing to get you into the program.

Then each individual ride is booked at least three days in advance. That is every time, forever, for as long as you use it.

So if the PT-1 has never been filed and the appointment is Thursday, this program cannot help you with Thursday. It can help you with everything after that. Start it anyway, today, because the version of this that works is the one where the paperwork was done months before anybody needed it.

Your broker, and their phone numbers

MassHealth does not drive you itself. Once you are approved you are assigned one of two regional brokers, and you find out which one by mail. The brokers then arrange the actual ride with local transportation companies.

• MART, (866) 834-9991, Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm. Covers Western, Central, Metro Boston and Northeastern Massachusetts.
• GATRA, (800) 431-1713, Monday to Friday, 7am to 6pm. Covers Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands.

Three ways to book once you know your broker: call them, use the broker's online portal, or use the QRyde Rider app. For the portal, your login is your MassHealth ID and your password is your birth month and day, which is the kind of detail that saves a frustrating phone call.

General MassHealth customer service is (800) 841-2900 if you are not sure where to start.

If the ride does not turn up

Call your broker directly, not MassHealth. They are expected to acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours. Write down the date, the time, and who you spoke to, because a pattern of missed rides is something the broker can act on and a vague complaint is not.

This matters more than it sounds. A missed dialysis ride is a medical event, not an inconvenience.

Where PT-1 works beautifully

Standing, predictable, recurring appointments. Dialysis three times a week. Weekly counseling. A regular specialist. Day habilitation. If your schedule is known and repeats, this is the right tool and it costs you nothing. Set it up once and it runs.

If that describes your situation, stop reading and call your doctor's office. Everything below is about the edges.

Where it does not reach

We would rather be straight about this than have you discover it on a bad morning.

• Short notice. Three days minimum, every ride. A discharge, a cancellation that gets rebooked for tomorrow, a specialist with a Friday opening. None of that fits.
• Steps at the door. This is the big one and it applies to every ride program in the state. A PT-1 ride takes you from your door to the appointment. It does not get your mother down four granite steps, and it does not get her down an interior staircase from a second floor bedroom. That is a separate job needing two trained people and often a stair chair.
• An unpredictable finish. Infusion runs long. A procedure gets pushed two hours. A scheduled return pickup assumes an end time that oncology and dialysis do not always give you.
• Anyone who needs a person, not a ride. The driver drops you off. Nobody sits through the appointment, hears the discharge instructions, notices your father did not understand the change to his medication, or calls you afterward.
• Procedures with sedation. A colonoscopy or anything with anesthesia requires a named responsible adult who comes in and signs you out. A ride is not a responsible adult. Ask the facility exactly what it requires before the day.

The other free options worth stacking with it

PT-1 is not the only thing available and the programs do not conflict. Set up as many as you qualify for.

• Your town's Council on Aging van. Nearly every Massachusetts town runs one for residents 60 and over, often free. The rules vary enormously, so ask four things: how much notice, how far out of town, does it take a wheelchair, what does it cost. Some towns want two days and at least one wants eight business days.
• The RIDE. The MBTA's paratransit service covers 58 municipalities. Book one to five days ahead. With a senior or income eligible reduced fare card a standard one way trip is $1.70. Apply well before you need it.
• Volunteer driver mileage programs. Programs like TRIP Metro North reimburse a friend, neighbor or relative for driving you, aimed at people who do not drive and do not qualify for The RIDE. If a relative would happily drive but cannot absorb the gas and parking, this exists and hardly anyone claims it.
• New town shuttles. Reading, Wakefield, Burlington and Woburn gained a free door to door on demand service in August 2026 running to Lahey and Winchester Hospital, free to every rider with no age limit. Ask your town whether anything similar started recently, because these are new and badly publicized.
• A Medicare Advantage transportation benefit, if the person has one alongside MassHealth. A large share of plans include one, often 36 one way trips a year at no copay. Call the number on the back of the card.

What to do at the next appointment

Say this to the front desk or the nurse: I have MassHealth and I need help getting to appointments. Can you submit a PT-1 for me. That is the whole ask. If they look blank, ask them to check with the billing or referrals staff, because a PT-1 is routine and somebody in that office knows how.

Then watch the mail for the letter naming your broker, and put that number in your phone.

If PT-1 covers your appointment, use PT-1. Call us for the ones it does not: the short notice trips, the ones where somebody has to stay, and the stairs between the bedroom and the front door.

Care Remedy provides wheelchair transportation, stair assistance and home care across eastern and central Massachusetts from offices in Woburn, Springfield and Brockton. Call 781-957-8076.

PT-1 eligibility, timelines, broker assignments and phone numbers above are drawn from MassHealth's own published guidance on getting a ride to medical appointments. Programs, coverage and phone numbers change. Confirm current details with MassHealth at (800) 841-2900 or with your assigned broker before relying on anything here.