Travel Time

Specialties Home Health

Published

I work for a homecare agency in Ohio. We start our day at home at 8am. We then do not get paid to drive to the first patients home, for some of us that is 5 min for others that is a half hour or more. Or get paid to drive home from the last pts home to our house to complete our work for the day.

I was wondering if this is normal or all of you or if there is a bigger issue at hand.

We are told that driving to the first pts home is like driving to our job and driving home from the last pts home is like driving home from our job but I am making those drives during my scheduled work hours.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

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Specializes in Acute Care, Rehab, Palliative.

That was how it worked when I worked in community.

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Specializes in Reproductive & Public Health.

Yeah, this is how it worked for us when I did home health. Neither the visiting nurses nor the private duty nurses were paid for travel time. It's bullsh*t, but pretty standard nonetheless.

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Travel time has never been paid for, even when it seemed to be justified. Stupid me had to figure out that a two and one half hour commute was ridiculous, before I figured out that my agency was taking advantage of me. Only one time was I paid straight mileage as an incentive. That boss also saw that my hourly rate was upped as much as she could. She did this because no one else would work the case and those carrots were enough for me. As I saw it, her positive attitude was welcome. Most of the time, if I mention mileage or anything else dealing with getting more reasonable pay, I get put in my place instantaneously.

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Yes that's how it usually is. It'd be like getting paid to drive to and from work if you worked at a hospital. I live 1 mile away from the office, so I usually go there first to check my mailbox, pick up supplies, paperwork I may need, and turn in the notes on the visits I made the day before. If you stop at the office FIRST, then you get pain for the mileage to your first pt. (with my company you do, it may not be like that for everyone.) Then if you go to the office last, you can count the mileage from your last pt's house. Like I said, I only live a mile way from the office, so I'm lucky in that area, that I can usually count most of my mileage.

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Whether your day begins or ends at the office, or at your first or last client's house, you can't generally deduct that travel time- you deduct travel time (mileage) within those two end points. But that doesn't prevent your employer from paying you for your travel time or mileage to or from work. Talk to a tax man- he/she might even be able to get you more than the federal milegae rate, which hasn't been updated in real time for about 100 years. There are loopholes in everything.

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For my first and last visits of the day, a previous employer would pay me for the mileage that was above and beyond the distance for me to travel from my house to the office (and vice versa). For example: my house was ten miles from our office. If my first visit was 15 miles from my house, they would reimburse me for five miles. I thought this was fair.

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For my first and last visits of the day, a previous employer would pay me for the mileage that was above and beyond the distance for me to travel from my house to the office (and vice versa). For example: my house was ten miles from our office. If my first visit was 15 miles from my house, they would reimburse me for five miles. I thought this was fair.

This is the IRS rule for what is allowable when claiming business use of one's car (provided it is not being reimbursed, as in this case).

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