Medical Transportation to Piedmont Healthcare Locations

Three trips families call us about

Piedmont operates hospitals and outpatient centers in Decatur and select areas of Atlanta, and the calls we get about them fall into three buckets: getting someone home after a stay, getting someone to a scheduled appointment they cannot drive to, and moving someone between facilities. Each one has a different pressure point.

Discharge is about timing. Appointments are about reliability. Transfers are about coordination between two buildings that do not talk to each other. We plan each one differently instead of treating them all as "a ride."

Heart2Heart Medical Transport is an independent transportation provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or contracted with Piedmont Healthcare.

Discharge: the timing problem

A discharge order rarely means the patient leaves in ten minutes. There is pharmacy, there is the final nursing check, there is the wait for the wheelchair. Our job is to be there when the patient is actually ready — not two hours early, not an hour late.

We do that by asking the unit for a realistic window and calling back to confirm before dispatch. If the patient is leaving on a stretcher, we assign a two-attendant crew from the start. Stretcher discharge is a different job than a wheelchair discharge, and pretending otherwise is how patients end up waiting while a second vehicle is sent.

Cardiac, oncology, and orthopedic follow-ups

A lot of Piedmont appointment trips involve patients who were recently very sick and are now expected to show up regularly for follow-up care. That is exactly the population that quietly stops going when transportation is unreliable.

For those patients we set up repeat bookings so the ride does not have to be renegotiated every week. The crew learns the routine — which door, how long the visit usually runs, whether the patient needs help getting from the car to the check-in desk. Door-through-door is standard on every trip; nobody gets left at a curb.

Which vehicle, honestly

We would rather send the right vehicle than the expensive one, and we will tell you on the phone if you are asking for more than the patient needs.

• Can sit upright the whole ride, needs help with the chair → wheelchair van
• Cannot sit upright, medically stable → stretcher with two trained attendants
• Needs monitoring, oxygen management, or an EMT-level attendant → BLS ambulance
• Unsure → call dispatch and describe the last time they were moved

Transfers to and from Piedmont facilities

Transfers between a Piedmont facility and a skilled nursing facility, rehab center, or another hospital are scheduled trips with two moving parts: someone releasing the patient and someone receiving them. We confirm both contacts before dispatch, and we confirm what equipment travels with the patient.

If the receiving facility is outside metro Atlanta, that becomes a long-distance trip and gets quoted by phone rather than through the calculator.

Cost and payment

Pricing is base rate plus mileage by vehicle type, and the calculator will show your route's number before you commit to anything. Trips to and from Piedmont locations are private pay.

Heart2Heart bills insurance for medically necessary transports such as dialysis, wound care and emergency-department related trips. Coverage depends on the patient's plan and is never guaranteed, and we do not bill Medicaid. We do not accept Medicaid in any form. Private-pay trips are paid by card; call dispatch at (678) 696-1583 with payment questions.