Transportation After Oral Surgery and IV Sedation Dentistry

What the practice is actually requiring

IV sedation dentistry uses the same agents as a surgical suite, at lower doses. The effect is the same in kind: you will feel capable of things you are not capable of, and you will not remember the drive.

Oral surgery adds a second problem the endoscopy centers don’t have. You will be leaving with gauze packed in your mouth, likely bleeding, possibly nauseated from swallowed blood, and under instructions not to talk much, not to spit and not to use a straw. That is not a good state in which to be managing a stranger’s vehicle, a route and a conversation.

Our drivers expect all of it. They assist at the door, they don’t need you to talk, and they will get you to your own front door rather than to the curb outside it.

How the ride works

Round trip on one booking is the usual arrangement — out to the practice, back when they call.

Bring someone or don’t. If a family member is coming to sit in the waiting room but can’t drive afterwards, that’s fine; the vehicle takes both of you. If nobody’s coming, the driver is the responsible adult the practice releases you to.

Tell us about stairs. Going up a flight while light-headed and holding gauze in place is the moment this trip is most likely to go wrong.

Tell us if the patient is a minor. A parent or guardian travels with them; that’s not an extra charge, it’s just how it works.

What it costs

A one-way ride is $90 plus $3 a mile for ambulatory or wheelchair transportation. A round trip — out and back on the same booking — is $55 per leg with five miles included on each, which works out cheaper than two one-ways under about eight miles.

Our full rate card and trip estimator is published — you can work out the price before you call. This is private pay in nearly every case; dental procedures are rarely a covered transport category.

What we can’t take

H&M Transport runs non-emergency medical transportation. We carry people to scheduled medical care and back home again, and the ride itself is transport rather than treatment.

That means there are trips we can’t take. We are not an ambulance service. We don’t provide medical care or monitoring on board, we don’t transport anyone to an emergency room, and we don’t move patients from one hospital to another for a higher level of care. Those are ambulance trips, and they need a crew and a vehicle equipped for them.

If this is a medical emergency, call 911.

If you’re not sure which you need, call us and describe the situation. We would rather tell you to dial 911 than send the wrong vehicle.

Common questions

Can I take an Uber or taxi home after a colonoscopy or surgery with sedation?

Most endoscopy and surgery centers won’t release a sedated patient to a rideshare or taxi driver. H&M Transport is different: our driver comes inside, meets you at discharge and takes you door-through-door to your home, and most local centers accept us as your ride. Confirm with your center when you schedule, and tell us the procedure time so we can plan the pickup. A family member is welcome to ride along.

What if the appointment runs long or I don’t know my return time?

Book the return as a will-call. If you can, call dispatch a little before your appointment wraps up, and we’ll start a driver your way so you wait as little as possible. If you can’t call until you’re finished, that’s fine: we’ll route the closest available driver, and our standard is to pick you up within 45 minutes of your call. The earlier you call, the shorter your wait. If you’d rather have the driver wait on site, prescheduled wait time is $75 an hour for wheelchair trips and $100 an hour for stretcher trips.

How do I ask for H&M Transport through Virginia Medicaid?

Call the transportation number on your Medicaid ID card; the brokers we work with are MTM Health and SafeRide Health. Request H&M Transport specifically when you book your ride. Covered rides to medical appointments cost the member nothing.

Book the ride

Book ahead — dental sedation appointments are scheduled weeks out, so there’s usually no reason to leave the ride to the last day.

Call dispatch at (703) 304-7889, any hour, or start on our reservations page and we’ll call you back.

We serve Northern Virginia, Washington DC and the Maryland suburbs, and we hold WMATC authority 3449 for crossings into the District and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.