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NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
San Antonio, TX, United States, 09/09/2010 - Comfort Care Transportation to give $1,500 to charity selected by rider in vehicle that logs 1 million miles of patient transports in Austin.
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Comfort Care Transportation, which provides no-cost door-to-door medical transportation for thousands of Medicare-eligible seniors in Central Texas, will log its 1 millionth mile of patient transports sometime this month.
To celebrate, the lucky Million Mile Rider gets to name an Austin-area charity to receive a $1,500 donation from Comfort Care.
Comfort Care Transportation started as a medical transportation service with two vehicles in San Antonio, TX. In 2002, WellMed Medical Management (wellmedmedicalgroup.com) purchased the company with a goal of promoting quality healthcare by eliminating a major barrier for many seniors – access to safe, reliable transportation.
Comfort Care has since expanded into other markets where WellMed serves seniors, including Austin, Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley, El Paso and the Treasure Coast of Florida.
Comfort Care entered the Austin market in 2006, offering complimentary transportation to Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in preferred Medicare Advantage health plans. Just four years later, the company is on the verge of 1 million miles of taking patients to the doctor, to lab tests, prescription pick-ups, specialist referrals, and other non-emergency medical appointments. In July, Comfort Care vehicles serving Austin completed nearly 2,100 patient transports.
Comfort Care currently has 16 employees in Austin and operates 15 vehicles, including two vans specially equipped for wheelchair patients. Overall, there are more than 100 vehicles in the fleet. Most are no more than a year old.
As part of WellMed’s efforts to be environmentally friendly, new vehicles purchased for use by ambulatory patients – those able to enter and exit a vehicle on their own – are the eco-friendly Honda Fit, which gets up to 35 highway miles per gallon.
Comfort Care plans to celebrate major milestones soon in two other Texas markets. Comfort Care will surpass 10 million miles of patient transports in the San Antonio area by Thanksgiving, and will reach 1 million miles in Corpus Christi and the Coastal Bend early in 2011.
Million Mile Riders will be named in both markets once those milestones are passed, and will get to name charities to benefit from Comfort Care donations.
The campaign is part of WellMed’s 20th Anniversary celebration. The diversified healthcare company is one of the nation’s fastest-growing private enterprises. It is set to open its fourth clinic in East Austin – WellMed Senior Clinic at Rosewood – later this year.
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dcalderon[.]wellmed.net 
