"I can't drive to my appointments."

Two different things

Mileage reimbursement covers travel you make yourself — to treatment, the pharmacy, physical therapy, and medical-legal exams. At the rate in effect on the day you travelled, which changed mid-year in 2026 from 72.5¢ to 76¢. Parking counts, and where a trip requires it a reasonable meal can too. Calculate what you're owed.

Transportation as medical treatment is different. Where the injury itself, or prescribed medication, makes driving unsafe or impossible, arranging transportation can fall within the employer's obligation to provide treatment reasonably required to cure or relieve the effects of the injury.

The second one requires a physician to say so.

What to ask for

Ask your treating physician to document, in the report, that you are unable to drive — and why. A restriction against driving while taking prescribed opioids or muscle relaxants. Vision loss. A brace that prevents operating a vehicle. Post-concussion symptoms. A leg or foot injury.

"Patient should not drive" in the record is what converts this from a favor into an obligation.

Then request transportation in writing from the claims administrator, referencing the restriction and the appointment dates.

Expect utilization review. Like other treatment requests it goes through the UR process, with the same deadlines and the same 30-day IMR clock if it is denied. How UR works.

While you sort it out

Do not miss appointments. A gap in treatment is read as improvement, and a missed medical-legal evaluation causes months of delay. What happens if you miss one.

If you are getting rides from family, log every one — date, miles, who drove. Mileage is reimbursable regardless of who was driving, and a contemporaneous log is what survives. Reconstructed mileage a year later is what adjusters reject most.

And if the distance itself is the problem, that is a separate issue with its own standards — a medical provider network has to have available physicians within defined distances of where you live or work. When they send you too far.