State Medicaid reaches out to Ridelink about reimbursements starting [Video]

PHOENIX (AZFamily) – A company that helps Native Americans, often in rural areas, get medical care may be able to begin providing service once again. Ridelink reached out to Arizona’s Family Investigates after the reimbursements they relied on from the state stopped coming in. They’d repeatedly tried to get in touch with the state agency that handles Medicaid, known as AHCCCS, but to no avail.

“It’s for profit, that’s true, but it’s not something like mega profit or something like that,” the owner of Ridelink, Eltayeb Sharif, said.

Sharif said Ridelink hasn’t been able to pay its 33 drivers and handful of office staff for nine weeks.

Despite not getting paid, some of his drivers continued to work up until last week, driving members of the Navajo Nation to their doctors’ appointments.

Arizona’s Family Investigates asked one of them, Joseph Chee, why.

“Helping my people,” Chee said. But he explained, “I …