We’ll give credit where credit is due: some workers’ compensation adjusters tell injured workers about this. But in our experience the majority of them don’t. If you go to see your workers’ compensation doctor, have therapy, or go to any medical appointment that is ten or more miles away from your home (or business if you are going from work) then you are entitled, by law, to be reimbursed for that trip. The exact amount varies but currently it is $.565 per mile. Don’t bother trying to round up on this! Seventeen miles isn’t close enough, unfortunately. In our experience most workers’ compensation adjusters check the mileage with an online map system like Google Maps or Mapquest.
Unfortunately we’ve seen numerous instances where workers’ compensation adjusters use inaccurate addresses to “prove” the trip is just less than ten miles. This happens most often if you live in a rural area. If your actual residential address doesn’t register on, say, Mapquest then an onlie request for directions will likely show the directions — and the mileage — from the center of your town. That obviously makes a big difference. Does the workers’ compensation adjuster know this is inaccurate? Of course, but it is your obligation to prove it to her.
We’ve also heard of workers’ compensation adjusters telling injured workers that the request for reimbursement must be done within a certain time frame – once as short as two business days – but that’s not true. As a practical matter if you wait and submit a year’s worth of mileage reimbursements at one time the workers’ compensation adjuster might squawk about it but there’s nothing she an do to legally object to it under North Carolina workers’ compensation law. As attorneys we take care of all of this for our clients of course.
