MTS Frequently Overrules Doctors’ Orders on Reduced Fares for the Disabled
MTS is required to provide discounted fares for certain disabled riders, but doctors, service providers, advocates and others say the process is burdensome and confusing.
Data shows MTS rejected or deemed incomplete thousands of applications in recent years.
By Lisa Halverstadt
For years, San Diego doctors have essentially written prescriptions for patients with disabilities to qualify for discounted Metropolitan Transit System fares. But MTS has declined to fulfill doctors’ recommendations hundreds of times in recent years, particularly for riders with mental health conditions.
Data obtained by Voice of San Diego after a public records request reveals MTS and the contractor it has directed to review applications have rejected more than 1,660 of the roughly 5,660 long-form applications MTS received in the last three years. Another third of applications submitted to MTS were deemed incomplete. The agency during roughly the same period processed nearly 20,000 applications submitted by seniors, riders with Americans with Disabilities Act placards and Medicare and Social Security income recipients who qualify with a short form that does not require a doctor’s sign-off.
A contingent of advocates, health care providers and MTS riders with disabilities have criticized the flood of denials and say they point to a broken system for doling out discounted fares and passes the agency is required to offer qualified riders with disabilities as a condition of federal funds it receives.
Regional clinic operator Family Health Centers of San Diego, homeless service provider Father Joe’s Villages, behavioral health nonprofit National Alliance on Mental Illness San Diego and county mental health workers have taken their concerns to MTS over the years. Some questioned why patients with mental health conditions so rarely receive discounted passes despite testimony from their doctors. Others described confusion about the form itself and the information MTS is seeking.
Family Health Centers has called multiple meetings with MTS, including in 2018 after the transit agency for a time stopped accepting applications from the lead physician at the nonprofit’s clinic at downtown Connections Housing after MTS said he failed to return calls inquiring about forms he had filled out.
“The actions of MTS lead to the providers changing their behavior and not applying as often because of the amount of work it takes and the frustration with the system,” said Anthony White, Family Health Center’s director of community and government relations. “This is particularly true for mental health issues, which most of our providers believe are never approved.”
The frustration over MTS’s review process coincided with the agency’s decision to dramatically ratchet up its enforcement of fare evasion.
