Transportation To and From Chemotherapy

Why the return leg is the hard one

Infusion days are long. A three or four hour chair time, plus labs beforehand and the wait for the pharmacy to mix, means many patients are at the center from morning to mid-afternoon.

By the end of it, several things are true at once. The pre-medications — steroids, antihistamines, anti-nausea drugs — are sedating in their own right. The infusion itself leaves most people profoundly tired. Some regimens cause immediate peripheral neuropathy, and numb feet are a genuine driving hazard. And nausea, if it’s going to happen, often starts on the way home.

There’s also the part nobody schedules around: patients on chemotherapy are immunosuppressed. A shared rideshare during flu season is a real clinical risk, not a preference.

Our vehicles carry one booking at a time. The rider isn’t sharing the trip with strangers.

How the ride works

Set up a standing order rather than rebooking every week. You tell us the days, the times and the destination once. The trip stays on our schedule, and the same crews tend to see the same riders — which matters more than it sounds like it should, because a driver who has done this run before knows which door, how long the appointment really takes, and whether this rider needs the vehicle warm before they get in.

Book the return as a call-back. Infusion times slip constantly — the labs come back late, the pharmacy is backed up, the chair isn’t free. You or the center calls dispatch when the infusion is nearly done and we come. Trying to fix the return time in advance usually means a vehicle waiting or a patient waiting.

Tell us how the last cycle went. If the rider needed a wheelchair by the end of the last one, book wheelchair transportation for this one. Needs change across a course of treatment and there’s no charge for telling us.

Say if a family member is coming. They travel with the rider.

What it costs

Ambulatory and wheelchair round trips are $55 per leg with five miles included on each leg, plus $3 a mile beyond that. On a recurring schedule that’s the figure to plan around. Stretcher service is $230 per leg.

Our full rate card and trip estimator is published — you can work out the price before you call. Medicaid members should book through their plan’s transportation broker rather than through us; the number is on the back of the member’s ID card. Medicare generally does not cover non-emergency medical transportation.

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

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.

Can I use my HSA or FSA, or deduct medical transportation on my taxes?

Usually, yes. Under IRS rules, transportation that is mainly for and essential to medical care counts as a medical expense, and that is the same test HSA and FSA plans use. So a ride to a medical appointment can generally be paid from an HSA or FSA or counted toward an itemized medical deduction. We’ll send an itemized receipt for any trip on request. Your plan administrator makes the final call on reimbursement, and a tax advisor can confirm the deduction for your situation.

Book the ride

Give us the cycle schedule once and we’ll build it into our board for the duration. If the schedule changes — and it does — one call updates it.

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.