Want employees to use their health benefits? Provide transportation to get there

Getting to a doctor's appointment isn't always straightforward — this company set out to eliminate transportation hurdles in their community, and improved the healthcare experience in the process. 

In 2025, Marsha Marseille and Kevin Castel teamed up to launch Cross Care Transport, a New York-based medical transportation system. The service provides non-emergency medical transportation across the New York City and Hudson Valley region for patients who have routine or specialized doctor's appointments with no actual means to get there. The goal was to create a solution that could prevent patients' health from deteriorating. 

"My [previous] experience working closely with elderly communities and coordinating their transitions from skilled care to private living, revealed the pressing challenges in medical transportation," says Marsha Marseille, co-founder of Cross Care Transport. "[Castel] and I saw this as a need to improve the local medical transportation market."

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'A growing frustration' within healthcare

Approximately 3.6 million people in the United States do not obtain medical care due to transportation issues, according to the American Hospital Association. This includes a lack of vehicle access, inadequate public transportation infrastructure, long distances to healthcare facilities and the cost of transportation. A separate study by UC Davis Health found that many of these barriers are particularly pronounced in rural and underserved urban areas, where public transportation options may be limited or nonexistent. 

"Sometimes patients may be wheelchair bound or bedridden," Marseille says. "In some instances, clients are completely ambulatory but they have surrendered their license or have to have a procedure done and must be checked out by an individual. We are able to fulfill all of those requests with our services."

Cross Care Transport's services include medical taxi, wheelchair, stretcher, stairlift and care attendants to accompany patients on their outings, which can range anywhere from surgery days and hospital discharges, and on special occasions, even social excursions the patient may want. To ensure safety and quality of care, there are always two team members per van. 

For Marseille and Castel, their service was always meant to be more than simply getting their clients from point A to point B. It was to make patient's transportation needs reliable, accessible and affordable. 

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"The lack of customer service and reliability in this space was a growing frustration," Marseille says. "We [knew] there had to be a better way." 

As for pricing, the company has a fixed rate for their services and monthly and annual subscriptions that range anywhere from $39 a month up to $5,000 annually. Currently, Cross Care Transport operates solely out of New York, but Marseille and Castel don't want to limit any future opportunities. 

"Our goal is to always grow," Marseille says. "The state of healthcare is a matrix system to navigate. These services are needed daily and there is still plenty of potential."