Every year millions of Americans miss important medical appointments due to lack of transportation.
Since 2016, Richmond company Roundtrip has worked with health systems in more than two dozen states, introducing them to a first-of-its-kind digital health care transportation marketplace. Roundtrip connects patients with nonemergency medical transportation and makes it easy for health care providers to order their patients’ rides.
A few years ago, Richmond native and software developer Ankit Mathur was introduced to Mark Switaj, now Roundtrip’s chief executive. “He had the idea – he just didn’t know anyone who could actually build software,” Mathur says. He started developing Roundtrip on the side, Mathur says, but the more he dug in, the more he understood how important it was to solve this problem.
“One day Mark and I were meeting the VP of a health system in Maryland and when we showed up, all 10 VPs were there,” Mathur says. “Word had traveled fast – every department in that health system faced that problem.”
Mathur says that while it is difficult to quantify the positive impact of his work, he’s heartened by looking every now and then at its online portal.
“We’ve driven a 3-year-old over 400 miles to get a transplant. We’ve transported a 70-year-old 50 miles to get back home and be with family after recovering from a procedure,” Mathur says. “I’d like to think that without Roundtrip, they might not have gotten the care they needed.”
