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The BRTA's contract as a broker for certain services will end in June under a state consolidation of service areas. The Montachusett Regional Transit Authority in Fitchburg will become transportation broker for a number of state agencies for all communities in the yellow zone.

BRTA Human Services Transport Scheduling Shifting to Fitchburg

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Berkshire Regional Transit Authority is concerned about maintaining a personalized customer experience in the wake of a state-mandated change in specialized services.
 
Starting in July, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services will enter a new contract with a brokerage area out of Fitchburg for Human Services Transportation. In 2019, the state department proposed the consolidation of six brokerage service areas that provide non-emergency "human service transportation" (HST) into three much larger service areas.
 
Under the proposal, BRTA is in Human Service Area 1 that covers all of Western Mass and from Warwick in the north diagonally across the state to Wrentham in the southeast. The other two areas are the Boston environs north and west and all of southeastern Massachusetts.
 
"BRTA is concerned about the continuity of care for our current HST customers which have become accustomed to a level of personal interaction which may not continue under the successor broker," Deputy Administrator Sarah Vallieres said last week. "Especially during the transition."
 
BRTA is one of the six regional transit authorities that currently broker transportation for consumers of six state agencies: the Department of Medical Assistance known as MassHealth, DMA, or Medicaid, the Department of Public Health, the Department of Developmental Services, Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission, Department of Mental Health, and Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.
 
It was notified that the brokerage services for Area 1 was awarded to Montachusett Regional Transit Authority (MART) in Fitchburg with a contract going into effect July 1, 2021. To provide a smooth transition into this new contract period, BRTA will be working with MART and notified the current HST vendors of the pending contract changes in a recent letter.
 
The BRTA has provided service for the county's 32 cities and towns for 20 years under a contract with the Human Service Transportation Office in Boston. It employs six full-time employees in its brokerage.
 
Eight area service providers are contracted for transportation and BRTA schedules trips for DMA customers. The other agencies' consumers are also provided with trips under contract and scheduled in coordination with their respective state agencies.
 
One vendor, who did not wish to be identified, said he was worried that shifting the scheduling to the eastern end of the state would cause mixups and delays. Workers in the east, he said, would not be familiar with area's geography, the time it took to get from here to there on secondary roads or local peculiarities like names, or addresses referring to houses built in other's back yards.
 
In November 2019, the HST Office issued a request for responses to solicit proposals to provide an array of transportation broker services on behalf of participating state agencies that have consumers needing non-emergency transportation to and from medical services and certain programs.
 
A condition of the request proposed the consolidation of the six service areas into three.
 
"The BRTA does not have the resources to have put in a proposal for such an extremely large area," Vallieres said, but is interested in subcontracting with MART to provide a smooth transition.
 
Last year, the BRTA submitted letters to the EOHHS, the attorney general, and the Berkshire delegation voicing concerns with the solicitation and the impact on customers and the workforce.
 
"The current HST brokerage contract has a central focus of a positive customer experience when interfacing with the brokerage and or vendors performing their transportation," BRTA Administrator Robert Malnati wrote on Jan 23, 2020. "This solicitation plans to consolidate the current nine brokerage areas into three areas, diminishing the local expertise in each of the current areas and therefore decreasing the current intentions of a positive customer experience."
 
MART informed BRTA that it will be reaching out to BRTA's current vendors to discuss onboarding and contractual information to continue vendor services with little or no interruption and BRTA was informed that the general public will be notified of the change at a later date by the HST Office with a direct letter and a series of listening sessions.
 
In the spring, BRTA will also be formally notifying customers of the July change.
 
BRTA is participating in weekly brokerage conference calls with HST to get additional information regarding the proposed schedule for the listening sessions and letter campaign. The current five-year contract remains in full effect until the last day of the fiscal year on June 30.
 
Clarification: an earlier versions of this article indicated BRTA would be entering a new contract. That is incorrect as the contract for services would be with EOHHS. This article has been edited to correct the error.

Tags: BRTA,   public transportation,   

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North Adams Regional Reopens With Ribbon-Cutting Celebration

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff

BHS President and CEO Darlene Rodowicz welcomes the gathering to the celebration of the hospital's reopening 10 years to the day it closed. 
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The joyful celebration on Thursday at North Adams Regional Hospital was a far cry from the scene 10 years ago when protests and tears marked the facility's closing
 
Hospital officials, local leaders, medical staff, residents and elected officials gathered under a tent on the campus to mark the efforts over the past decade to restore NARH and cut the ribbon officially reopening the 136-year-old medical center. 
 
"This hospital under previous ownership closed its doors. It was a day that was full of tears, anger and fear in the Northern Berkshire community about where and how residents would be able to receive what should be a fundamental right for everyone — access to health care," said Darlene Rodowicz, president and CEO of Berkshire Health Systems. 
 
"Today the historic opportunity to enhance the health and wellness of Northern Berkshire community is here. And we've been waiting for this moment for 10 years. It is the key to keeping in line with our strategic plan which is to increase access and support coordinated county wide system of care." 
 
Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, under the BHS umbrella, purchased the campus and affiliated systems when Northern Berkshire Healthcare declared bankruptcy and closed on March 28, 2014. NBH had been beset by falling admissions, reductions in Medicare and Medicaid payments, and investments that had gone sour leaving it more than $30 million in debt. 
 
BMC was able to reopen the ER as an emergency satellite facility and slowly restored and enhanced medical services including outpatient surgery, imaging, dialysis, pharmacy and physician services. 
 
But it would take a slight tweak in the U.S. Health and Human Services' regulations — thank to U.S. Rep. Richie Neal — to bring back inpatient beds and resurrect North Adams Regional Hospital 
 
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