How long medical appointments take: setting NEMT return times by appointment type

A return time is a guess about the clinic, not the doctor

The return pickup time on a trip is your estimate of when the rider walks out the door. That includes check-in, waiting, the visit or procedure, any recovery, and checkout. The time a rider spends with a doctor is the smallest part of it on most days.

Getting the estimate right matters on both ends. Too early, and a van sits in a parking lot while other riders wait. Too late, and a tired rider sits in a lobby, often after a treatment that leaves them weak. Program rules also fix the arrival side. TennCare’s managed care contract (amendment effective July 1, 2026), for example, counts any drop-off made inside the last 15 minutes before the appointment as late, and it caps the early arrival a rider can be asked for at one hour. Other programs’ arrival windows are collected under appointment time.

Below are the typical lengths published by the agencies and medical societies that write patient instructions for each kind of visit. Use them as a starting point, then replace them with what your own trip records show for each clinic.

Typical length by appointment type

Most imaging exams take an hour or less, scope procedures one to two hours with recovery, and dialysis about four hours, while chemotherapy and nuclear stress tests are the long, unpredictable ones. Times below are for the appointment itself, from each source’s patient page.

None of these include time in the waiting room. Add the check-in time each clinic asks for.

Dialysis and rehab: long but steady

Dialysis is the most predictable long appointment. NIDDK says in-center patients are given a standing slot three days a week, on either a Monday-Wednesday-Friday or a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday rotation, and a session runs about 4 hours. MedlinePlus puts it at 3 to 4 hours. Some centers also run overnight treatments three nights a week, which take longer.

The variation is at the end, not the middle. Riders come off the machine at slightly different times. NIDDK also warns that a standard treatment can leave people worn out for several hours afterward, and that blood pressure can fall suddenly during a session, leaving them weak or dizzy. Time the return from the chair time, not from your drop-off, and keep the same vehicle near the unit at the end of each shift. The dialysis rider guide covers what drivers watch for on the way home.

Cardiac and pulmonary rehab are steady for a different reason: Medicare defines the session. Under 42 CFR 410.49, cardiac rehabilitation is limited to two 1-hour sessions a day, up to 36 sessions over as long as 36 weeks, with up to 36 more if the Medicare contractor approves. Intensive cardiac rehab allows up to six 1-hour sessions a day and 72 sessions over up to 18 weeks. Pulmonary rehab under 42 CFR 410.47 has the same limit as standard cardiac rehab. A rider on a three-times-a-week program is a natural standing order with a timed return. Daily hyperbaric oxygen therapy for a wound is another run of weeks that suits one.

Cancer treatment: short radiation visits, open-ended infusions

Radiation is short and daily. Per the National Cancer Institute, the usual external beam schedule is one treatment each weekday, Monday through Friday, for a number of weeks. The radiation itself takes 1 to 5 minutes, and most visits last 30 minutes to an hour, with most of that spent getting the patient into position. A wait-and-return or a short timed return usually fits.

Chemotherapy is the opposite. NCI’s booklet for patients, “Chemotherapy and You” (January 2024), notes that treatment schedules vary widely, and its list of questions for patients to ask includes how long each treatment lasts and whether someone should drive them to and from treatment. If the patient has to ask, so should you. Get the expected chair time from the infusion center when the standing order is set up, and fall back to a will-call when the center cannot give one. NCI’s treatment page lists fatigue as a common side effect and suggests asking someone to drive the patient to and from chemotherapy. The cancer treatment guide covers the rest of a treatment course.

Imaging: find out which scan

An order that just says “imaging” can mean a 15-minute visit or a half-day one. Ask which test it is when the trip is booked:

• CT. RadiologyInfo, the patient site of the Radiological Society of North America and the American College of Radiology, says a CT exam is usually completed within 30 minutes. Exams with contrast may come with instructions not to eat for a few hours beforehand.
• MRI. The whole exam usually takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the exam and the machine. RadiologyInfo tells patients who take a sedative for claustrophobia or anxiety not to drive themselves home.
• PET/CT. After the injection, the tracer takes about 30 to 60 minutes to absorb, and scanning takes about 30 minutes. Exams that add other tracers or drugs can stretch the procedure to three hours.
• Nuclear stress test. Imaging, a treadmill or bike stress test, and a second set of images mean about two to four hours in the nuclear medicine department.
• Mammogram and bone density. A mammogram takes about 30 minutes. A DXA bone density scan is usually done in 10 to 30 minutes.

The short exams are where a wait-and-return earns its keep, if the program pays for the wait and nothing better is waiting for that van.

Sedation and eye procedures: the rider leaves with help

Procedures with sedation have a recovery period built in, and the rider cannot leave alone. NIDDK’s patient pages say a colonoscopy usually takes less than an hour, followed by about 30 to 60 minutes at the hospital or outpatient center. An upper GI endoscopy takes 10 to 20 minutes, with about an hour afterward. Both pages tell patients to arrange a ride home because the sedatives need time to wear off. The pickup has to line up with discharge, so book these as will-calls and keep a vehicle within reach. Riders given a sleep aid at an overnight sleep study need the same care the next morning.

Eye care has its own version. The National Eye Institute says cataract surgery lasts about an hour and patients cannot drive afterward. After a dilated eye exam, vision may be blurry and light-sensitive for a few hours, which matters for a rider who usually walks to the van alone. What a surgery center expects from the person picking up a sedated patient is covered in the guide to rides after outpatient surgery.

When the ride back is a call

When you cannot estimate the end time, do not guess. A will-call return holds the trip until the rider or the clinic calls, and the program’s clock starts then. MTM’s Missouri participant page, for example, tells riders with a scheduled return to expect the driver within 15 minutes after the visit ends, and within one hour of calling if no return was scheduled. TennCare’s contract also sets one hour after notification when no return time was arranged. The will-call guide covers how other programs set that clock and how to plan vehicles for it.

A simple rule of thumb works for most schedules:

1. Timed return when the session length is fixed: dialysis from the chair time, rehab, radiation.
2. Wait-and-return for short exams where the van would otherwise drive away and come straight back: CT, mammogram, DXA.
3. Will-call whenever recovery, testing, or a doctor’s decision controls the end: sedation procedures, chemotherapy, stress tests, PET with added tests, and specialist visits that may send the rider for labs or imaging.

Build your own numbers

Published times are averages across the country. Your own records are better. Each completed trip shows when the rider was dropped off and when they were picked up, and the gap is the real time at that clinic. After a few weeks, sort those gaps by destination and appointment type and use the typical value for each clinic as your default return time.

Ask at booking, too. MTM’s Virginia member handbook already asks callers for the time they need to be picked up after the appointment, if they know it. Riders and clinic schedulers often do know, especially for treatments they have had before.

Setting return times in HealthRide

In HealthRide, a will-call is one of the flexible return trips that hold their place on the board, and it activates the moment the passenger is ready, so nobody has to guess the end of a chemo day. Every trip keeps its pickup and drop-off timestamps, and the trip log exports to a spreadsheet, which is where your own clinic-by-clinic averages come from. See how will-calls sit on the dispatch board and how exports work in reports.