EEOICPA transportation: the EE-28 authorization, OWCP enrollment, and billing the Labor Department

Rides for energy workers with an accepted illness are paid by the Department of Labor (DOL) as the primary payer, and a ride company is paid only if DOL approved the ride before it was given. You enroll with the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP), send a transportation authorization (Form EE-28) for the rider, and bill through OWCP’s medical bill processing portal once the authorization is approved. Federal employees’ injury claims and Black Lung claims use the same portal but are different programs, and the federal employee side is covered in workers’ comp transportation.

Who are the riders, and what does the program pay for?

The riders are current and former workers at Department of Energy sites and the companies that served them, with an illness DOL has accepted as work related. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) has two parts. Part B covers radiation-related cancers, chronic beryllium disease, chronic silicosis for certain Nevada and Alaska test-site tunnel miners, and some uranium workers. Part E covers illnesses caused by toxic exposure at covered Energy Department facilities. DOL’s Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation (DEEOIC) runs both.

DEEOIC is the primary payer for care tied to an accepted illness, and the worker pays no copayment or deductible. Its brochure lists travel to the doctor, hospital, clinic or other medical facility among covered care. Care for any other condition goes to the worker’s other coverage.

DOL’s April 2026 update gives a sense of scale. As of March 26, 2026, applications on file covered 152,716 individual workers, and the program had paid about $15.5 billion in medical bills across both parts. The same update lists the 2026 outreach stops, which show the communities around the sites: North Augusta, South Carolina (Savannah River Site); Las Vegas and Pahrump, Nevada (Nevada Test Site); Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Grand Junction, Colorado; Moab, Utah; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Casper and Riverton, Wyoming.

When does the program pay for a ride?

It pays for reasonable and necessary travel to authorized medical care, and a taxi, bus, mini-bus or wheelchair van trip needs approval first. The rule is 20 CFR 30.404. It treats a round trip of up to 200 miles as generally reasonable, and it requires written prior authorization when a trip is longer than 200 miles or needs air travel or an overnight stay.

The DEEOIC brochure adds the point that matters to you: overnight travel, any travel other than a privately owned vehicle, and car trips over 200 miles round trip all need the medical benefits examiner’s authorization before travel. So a wheelchair van ride needs an authorization at any distance. DEEOIC pays only for treatment of accepted conditions during approved dates of eligibility.

A claimant who drives their own car in a single day and stays within 200 miles round trip needs no approval and files Form OWCP-957 for mileage at the General Services Administration rate. DOL’s portal tutorial says transportation authorization forms are not required for claimant travel. That is a claimant reimbursement, not a ride company’s bill.

How do you enroll with OWCP?

Enrollment is free, runs online, and OWCP completes it within seven business days of your submission. Since September 11, 2026 OWCP no longer accepts mailed or faxed applications. 20 CFR 30.700 requires every provider to enroll before it can use the authorization system or send bills, and OWCP’s provider manual describes how:

1. Register with OWCP Connect. This is a one-time account, created with an email address, a password and security questions.
2. Start the application in the provider portal. The manual lists non-emergency transportation under the enrollment type for facilities, agencies, organizations and institutions. You start with your tax ID and business name. The manual says facility applications begin with a Type II NPI as well, yet it also says a transportation company that delivers no medical care cannot get one, so ask the DEEOIC line what to enter if the form asks.
3. Add your license and upload the document. Organizations enter license information in the business licenses step and attach supporting documents. A call to the DEEOIC line settles which license it wants for a transportation company. Your business name and tax ID are checked against IRS records.
4. Give your bank details. Since September 30, 2025, every OWCP provider must follow the Treasury’s electronic payment mandate, and the portal collects the account information.
5. Sign and submit. The application is Form OWCP-1168. By signing it you certify that you meet all federal and state licensing and regulatory rules for your type of business and agree to keep the proof. An application that is not submitted within 90 days of its last update is deleted.

You receive a nine-digit OWCP provider ID. It is not your NPI or your tax ID, and a commonly missed field on authorization forms is this number. Enrollment is per program: a company enrolled for federal employees’ compensation cannot submit a DEEOIC authorization until it also enrolls with DEEOIC. Since July 18, 2026, one application can list several locations. If a license expires, the status becomes terminated and payment stops until the record is updated. OWCP sends reminders 60 and 30 days before expiration.

How do you complete the EE-28?

The EE-28 has five parts, and you send it before the ride. DOL revised it in February 2026. DOL says to submit it through the portal, and to fax it only when necessary, to 1-800-882-6147 with the claimant’s case ID on every page.

• Part A, requestor. The date, who is asking, and a phone number.
• Part B, claimant. The case ID, which is printed on the front of the claimant’s Medical Benefits Identification Card, plus date of birth and name. All four fields are required.
• Part C, provider. Your OWCP provider ID, tax ID and name, and a fax number if responses should go somewhere other than the fax on file. It also asks whether you are providing care for a family member and, if so, the relationship.
• Part D, trip. Choose where the ride starts and ends from Home, Hospital, Lab, Office/Clinic, Pharmacy or Work. Then, for each line, enter the from and to dates, the transportation code and your estimated total charge. Remarks are optional.
• Part E, documents. Attach a transportation invoice and supporting transportation documents. The portal will not let you submit without an attachment, and it takes only TIF, TIFF and PDF files with file names of 50 characters or fewer.

The four codes are A0100 taxi, A0110 bus, A0120 mini-bus or mountain area and other transport, and A0130 wheelchair van. Two rules from OWCP’s template guide save returned requests. The same code cannot appear on more than one line, even for dates that do not overlap, so combine the dates and the amount into one line, or file a new authorization for each service date. And DEEOIC allows corrections only to rehabilitative therapy and home health authorizations, so a change to a transportation authorization means a new request. The form has one From and one To, so ask the DEEOIC line how it wants a return leg entered.

After you submit, the request shows as In Review. Since April 25, 2026, OWCP emails the provider whenever the status changes, so keep your contact email current. An approval letter lists the claimant, the approved procedures, the approved dates and amount, and an authorization number. A denial letter goes to the claimant with the reason, and DEEOIC providers get a copy. DOL’s tips say an authorization request does not guarantee payment, and an emergency is handled within 24 business hours.

How do you get paid after the ride?

Bill when the authorization shows Approved. A bill that needed authorization and did not have it is denied even when the ride was necessary. OWCP’s manual says a provider may ask for authorization afterward and the bill is paid once that is approved, but waiting for the Approved status is safer. You have three ways to bill:

• Portal entry. Direct data entry lets you fix errors before you submit and upload attachments in real time.
• Electronic batch. Bills can be sent as EDI batch files through the portal, and a billing agent or clearinghouse that sends them has to enroll with OWCP first.
• Paper. Print and mail the OWCP-1500 bill form to DEEOIC General Bills, P.O. Box 8304, London, KY 40742-8304. OWCP processes paper bills in 28 calendar days from the day the mailroom receives them.

The OWCP fee schedule caps what DOL pays (20 CFR 30.705), so ask the DEEOIC line what is allowed for your code and area before you put a figure on the form. If your price to the general public is lower than the schedule, you must bill the lower price, and you may not collect the difference from the claimant. A provider who keeps collecting from the claimant, without stopping or refunding within 60 days of OWCP’s decision, can be excluded under 20 CFR 30.715. Exclusion also follows a conviction for program fraud, an exclusion from another federal or state program, a knowingly false statement on a request for payment, or three bills in 12 months substantially over your customary charges.

Payment arrives by electronic funds transfer, with a remittance voucher mailed weekly that lists what was paid or denied and why. DOL issues one 1099-MISC for each tax ID paid $600 or more in a year. If the business name and tax ID on file do not match IRS records, OWCP withholds 24 percent of payments. If DOL reduces a fee, you may ask for reconsideration within 30 days of payment, with documents that fit one of the grounds in the provider manual.

The time limit is set by 20 CFR 30.703. No bill is paid if it comes more than one year after the end of the calendar year of the ride, or of the year DOL accepted the claim, whichever is later. A ride on March 12, 2026 would have to be billed by December 31, 2027.

What if the rider pays you and claims it back?

A claimant can pay the driver and seek reimbursement, but the claimant still needs the examiner’s approval before the trip. The reimbursement form is OWCP-957 Part B, which covers non-mileage costs including taxi and other transportation fees. DEEOIC’s brochure says receipts are required for any expense of $75 or more, and DOL’s slides note that the fee schedule limits what a claimant gets back. If you want DOL to pay you directly, enroll as above.

For Black Lung, a separate division pays. Under 20 CFR 725.701, the responsible operator or the fund pays a miner’s reasonable cost of travel for medical treatment at government mileage rates. Its provider line is 1-800-638-7072.

Keeping trip records in HealthRide

An authorization asks for a transportation invoice and supporting records. HealthRide keeps each completed trip’s pickup and drop-off times, GPS-recorded miles and the rider’s on-screen signature, and builds an invoice from completed trips, priced from your rates. That gives you an invoice with the trip details behind it. See invoicing.