Home > SNAP > Expenses and Deductions > Health Insurance/Medical Expenses > Medical Expenses > Transportation Related Costs
Eligible clients may claim travel and lodging costs when seeking health care treatment. This includes roundtrip costs for one time or recurring visits to doctors, clinics, physical therapy sessions and pharmacies.
Transportation costs may include, but are not limited to:
use of a private car to get to and from appointments. The mileage credit is calculated using the Federal Mileage Rates;
parking costs and tolls incurred to attend appointments;
payments to friends/family for medical related transportation;
actual cost of bus, subway, shuttle or taxi; or
monthly public transportation passes. You may credit the client for the percentage used for medical transportation.
EXAMPLE: Sally (she/her) is a retired teacher. She has a monthly MBTA Senior Pass that costs $30 per month. She reports that 75% of her trips are for medical related travel. Sally can claim 75% of the cost of her pass as a medical expense, this comes out to $22.50 per month ($30 X .75 = $22.50).
EXAMPLE: Jack (he/his) pays a neighbor to take him to his dialysis appointment every Friday. He gives him $5 in cash and the neighbor drops him off and picks him up. Jack provides you with a signed statement from his neighbor verifying this arrangement. You can credit Jack for $21.67 as a monthly transportation cost ($5 x 4.333).
Calculating Mileage (Back to Index)
If a client incurs medical expenses above $190 per month, they must submit verification of the costs for public transportation, rideshare, and/or any other transportation for which they are not using their own vehicle. If the client’s medical expenses are greater than $35 and less than (or equal to) $190 per month, they can verify these costs via telephonic or written self-declaration.
However, if a client uses their own vehicle for medical purposes (e.g., drives to pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, drives to doctor’s appointments), they can receive credit for mileage by providing a self-declaration of their starting location(s), destination(s), and number of trips. In this case, they can provide a DTA Connect, telephonic, or a written self-declaration even if their total medical expenses are above $190 per month (but must submit verification of all other medical costs to be credited with the monthly amount above $190. For more information, see Standard Medical Deduction Waiver). Please note that if a starting location is not provided, you must use the client’s residential address as the starting location.
To properly credit mileage, you must enter the home address for the client and the destination of the trip into a map service such as Google Maps or MapQuest. These sites will provide mileage based on a default route. The default route should be used to calculate the allowable expense unless the client indicates that they take a different route.
For the current federal mileage rate, click here. Mileage may be claimed provided the eligible client uses their own car or a member of the SNAP household uses their car to provide health related travel for an elderly and/or disabled household member. You do not need to verify ownership of the vehicle.
You must not assume that all transportation expenses are round-trip. When discussing mileage-related expenses with clients, it is important that you establish whether the mileage declared is one-way or round-trip.
You must save the route results displaying the mileage and upload them into the narratives. Clients must not be asked to provide these printouts. You must include a clear explanation of the expense in the case narrative.
EXAMPLE: Charles (he/his) uses his car to get to physical therapy appointments at the VA and travels to his local pharmacy to pick up prescriptions. Charles may self-declare, on DTA Connect, in writing, telephonically, the starting address and end address for these trips and the frequency of his medical related travel. Enter the starting location and end location for each trip into Google Maps or MapQuest to figure out the trip mileage.
DTA Connect – Medical Expense Mileage (Back to Index)
During case maintenance, if a client uses DTA Connect to report medical costs that include the cost of mileage, BEACON will create the Action, DTA Connect – Medical Expense Mileage, for a FAW to review. If you receive the DTA Connect- Medical Expense Mileage action, you must follow these steps:
Open the data sheet in the Scanned Document History to view the destination(s) and trip frequency that the client reported.
Use a map service (such as Google Maps or MapQuest) to determine the client’s mileage based on residential address as starting location, the destination(s) and trip frequency (including one-way or round-trip) reported on DTA Connect. Multiply it by the federal mileage rate, and enter the dollar figure into BEACON. You must save the route results displaying the mileage and upload them into the narratives.
If the medical mileage makes the household’s total medical expenses less than or equal to $190, you must mark the medical expenses as verified, recalculate the benefits, and write a detailed narrative.
If the mileage results in the medical expense total going above $190 per month and there are other medical expenses for which no verification is on file, you must follow the procedures detailed in the Medical Expenses > $190 at Case Maintenance section of the Standard Medical Deduction Waiver page.
Reminder |
Medical mileage itself continues to be a self-declarable verification item, even if the monthly total is above $190. Therefore, if the mileage results in the medical expense total going above $190 per month you can mark the mileage as self-declared (since the client will have self-declared the information on DTA Connect). You must wrap the case with self-declared medical expenses in the SMD range and send a VC-1 for all medical expenses, understanding that mileage would not require further verification. |
If more information is needed to process the change, attempt to cold call the client two times:
If one of the cold calls is successful, resolve the missing information with the client over the phone.
If both cold calls are unsuccessful, send an optional VC-1 for the medical costs related to mileage. To ensure that the client knows specifically what you are requesting on the VC-1, select Additional Verification for Element and type the following for Document(s) of evidence:
“You reported medical costs on DTA Connect. We need more information about your travel for medical reasons. Please call us or send us a signed letter telling us each trip’s starting location, ending location, and number of times per month you have to drive to the location and if it is a round-trip or a one-way trip.”
Disposition the action without wrapping the case.
If the client subsequently follows up with the verification, the FAW who receives the Action to review the documents must add the additional information to the BEACON record and recalculate the SNAP benefits.
(If the client indicates multiple medical-related travel locations, add the total mileage together and enter it under one transportation record.)
If the client does not follow up with verification, the record cannot be updated.