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 many 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

Put the cycle on a standing order. Give us the center, the infusion days and the chair times once, and every treatment stays on our schedule until the course ends. The same crews tend to carry the same riders, so the driver learns the entrance, the usual chair time and how this rider is feeling by the third cycle.

Book the return as a call-back. Infusion times slip for ordinary reasons — 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

Chemotherapy round trips by ambulatory or wheelchair transportation are $55 per leg, five miles included each way, then $3 a mile. Over a course of cycles, plan with that per-leg figure. A stretcher round trip is $230 per leg.

Our rate card and trip estimator are published, so you can price a full course before the first cycle. For 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. In DC we serve UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of the District of Columbia members through SafeRide Health, and we are not a Maryland Medicaid provider. Original Medicare doesn’t pay for these vans, but a Medicare Advantage plan whose ride benefit runs through MTM Health or SafeRide Health can send the trip to us.

Chemo trips that need an ambulance

We drive patients to scheduled treatment and home again; the van is transport, not part of the treatment.

A rider who needs an emergency room, monitoring on board or a move to another hospital for a higher level of care needs an ambulance crew, not our van. If a rider becomes unwell, the driver stops safely and calls 911.

If this is a medical emergency, call 911.

If you can’t tell which trip this is, describe the patient to dispatch; when it’s an ambulance trip, we’ll say so.

Common questions

What if the infusion runs late or I don’t know when I’ll be done?

Make the ride home a will-call. Call dispatch as the infusion is finishing and a driver starts toward the center; call once you’re unhooked and a driver arrives within 45 minutes. The earlier the call, the shorter the wait. A driver can wait on site instead at $75 an hour for wheelchair trips or $100 an hour for stretcher.

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 chemotherapy 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.

Give dispatch the cycle dates at (703) 304-7889, day or night, or through our reservations page, and a confirmation follows by call or text within two hours. Anything booked the day before is guaranteed; a same-day ride needs three hours’ notice. When a cycle is delayed, changes are free more than two hours before pickup, and a later change or a no-show is $50.

Chemo rides run across Northern Virginia, Washington DC and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, with WMATC authority 3449 covering DC and Maryland and Virginia DMV Certificate #524 covering Virginia.