How veterans get rides to VA appointments: beneficiary travel, VA vans, and volunteer drivers

Three kinds of help, and how to ask for each

VA helps veterans reach care in three ways: a free ride, money back for getting there on their own, and a wheelchair van or ambulance when the veteran’s condition calls for one. Volunteer groups and rural transit fill in some of the gaps. The table shows who can use each option and where to start.

A veteran can use more than one of these over a year, but not two for the same trip. VA says anyone who takes a free ride from VA, DAV, or a free city or state service cannot claim travel pay for that trip, since there was no expense.

Free rides from VA

VA’s own ride service, the Veterans Transportation Program, costs the veteran nothing. Two conditions apply: the veteran is enrolled in VA health care, and the visit is at a VA facility or with a community provider VA has authorized. Each facility sets its own cutoff for ride requests, so ask early.

There are two ways to book:

1. VetRide. Sign in at the VetRide website or in the VetRide Passenger app with an ID.me or Login.gov account, enter a ZIP code, and follow the prompts.
2. By phone. Call the transportation representative at the veteran’s VA facility. VA’s ride request page links to the contact list.

Under 38 CFR 70.73, VA needs the rider’s name, the basis for eligibility, the appointment time, the pickup and drop-off locations, and anything the trip has to accommodate, like a wheelchair, an oxygen tank, or a service animal. Rides are generally first come, first served. A veteran can ride without a reservation when being discharged from an inpatient stay, when a VA clinician recommends an unscheduled visit, or when moving to another VA or VA-authorized facility. When a facility runs out of seats, enrolled veterans get first priority, and the facility must help anyone it turns away find another option.

VA’s own vans follow rules set in VHA Directive 1695. Families should know four of them before the day of the ride:

• Help stops at the front door. Drivers can steady the veteran stepping into and out of the van and walk them to the front door. They cannot enter the home, and they cannot help move the veteran onto or off a wheelchair or stretcher.
• Scooters ride empty. A veteran unable to transfer to a van seat travels in a standard wheelchair instead, and the scooter is loaded only if the van can tie it down safely.
• Oxygen must be declared. Oxygen travels only in vehicles with VA-approved tank holders, and the need must be stated when the ride is scheduled.
• Service dogs only. No other animals ride on these vehicles.

The legal authority for these rides is temporary. The law that lets VA transport veterans, 38 U.S.C. 111A, carries an expiration date that Congress has pushed back again and again, including in 2022, 2024, and 2025. The current end date, December 11, 2026, comes from a stopgap funding law signed on September 2, 2026.

Volunteer drivers and rural rides

DAV runs a fleet of vehicles that carry ill and injured veterans to VA medical facilities for free. Volunteer drivers operate these vans at more than 247 VA locations, a program DAV has run since 1987. To find out whether a van serves a given area, contact the nearest DAV Hospital Service Coordinator through DAV’s directory. Because volunteers staff the network, DAV says it cannot cover every community.

Many VA facilities also run a Volunteer Transportation Network with veterans service organizations. Two limits apply to these rides. The veteran must be able to board and step down without help from the volunteer behind the wheel, and a caregiver who wants to ride along may need authorization from the veteran’s VA health care team.

Veterans in the most remote counties have one more option. VA’s Highly Rural Transportation Grants pay for free rides where counties average under seven residents per square mile, the definition in 38 CFR 17.701. VA’s highly rural rides page lists, county by county, the phone number to call in twelve states: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada in the West; Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and the two Dakotas on the northern Plains; Texas and New Mexico in the Southwest; and Maine. Our guide to rural transportation grants explains how those grants are awarded.

When none of these reach the veteran, VA’s ride page points to the United Way’s 2-1-1 service and to state and local transportation agencies. Our list of free medical transportation for seniors covers other local options.

Getting paid back for driving

Beneficiary travel pays eligible veterans back for getting themselves to care. A veteran qualifies when the care is at a VA facility or is VA-approved care in the community, and at least one of these is true:

• a VA disability rating of 30 percent or higher,
• travel for a service-connected condition, even with a lower rating,
• receiving a VA pension, or income under VA’s maximum annual pension rate,
• being unable to afford the trip under VA’s guidelines, or
• travel for a scheduled compensation and pension exam, to get a service dog, or for VA-approved transplant care.

The mileage rate is 41.5 cents, measured door to door on the fastest and shortest route from home to the closest VA or authorized facility that can provide the care. Scheduled appointments get round-trip mileage. Unscheduled visits may get return mileage only. Parking and tolls are paid without advance approval. Taxis, rideshares, buses, trains, planes, and any meals or lodging need approval before the trip, and meals and lodging are capped at half the local government employee rate.

A deductible comes off first: $3 for each one-way trip ($6 round trip), capped at $18 a month. After $18, VA pays approved travel in full for the rest of that month. Under 38 CFR 70.31, VA waives the deductible for veterans who receive a VA pension or whose income is at or below VA’s income threshold.

Example. A veteran with a 30 percent rating lives 40 miles from the VA clinic that treats her and drives to three scheduled appointments in one month. Each round trip is 80 miles, worth $33.20. VA takes $6 from each, so she receives $27.20 per visit, and her $18 monthly deductible is used up after the third. A fourth trip that month would be paid in full.

Travel to a VA facility farther away than the closest one is paid only with approval before the trip, and a VA provider has to confirm a medical reason, such as a test the closest facility does not offer.

Filing the claim

A claim has to reach VA within 30 calendar days after the trip, unless the trip used a wheelchair van or ambulance. VA usually denies claims filed later, and every appointment gets its own claim.

Where to file depends on the trip:

1. On VA.gov. This works when the veteran left from their home address on record and came back the same way. After signing in with an ID.me or Login.gov account, pick the visit from the list of past appointments and choose “File a travel reimbursement claim.” A claim for mileage alone needs no receipts.
2. Through BTSSS. The Beneficiary Travel Self-Service System is for one-way trips, trips that started from a different address, and claims by caregivers. It allows receipts to be attached.
3. At check-in. At facilities that offer smartphone check-in, a veteran who drove their own vehicle from home and is claiming mileage only can file during check-in.
4. On paper. VA Form 10-3542 can be mailed or dropped off at the VA facility that provided the care. A mailed claim counts as filed on its postmark date.

Before the first claim, set up direct deposit for travel pay. VA says this is separate from direct deposit for other VA benefits. For community care visits, ask the provider’s office for proof of attendance at the end of the appointment.

When the veteran needs a wheelchair van or ambulance

VA calls these trips special mode transportation, and it pays for them when four things line up. The veteran is going to VA or VA-approved community care, qualifies for travel pay, has a VA provider who decides the veteran’s condition calls for an ambulance or a specially equipped van, and has VA’s approval before the trip, unless it was an emergency. No deductible applies to these trips.

The order matters. Talk to the VA provider first, then request the trip through VetRide or by calling the facility’s transportation office. VA does not pay for a non-emergency wheelchair van booked without that approval. After an emergency ambulance ride, VA wants a phone call within 72 hours so it can decide whether to pay the ambulance company directly. The VA beneficiary travel entry covers how VA pays the companies that run these trips, and our guide to VA transportation contracts explains how medical centers buy them.

Veterans who also have Medicaid or Medicare

Many veterans have Medicaid too. In its 2023 transportation guide, CMS told states they may cover Medicaid trips to services that another payer covers, and it gave the VA as its example: a member enrolled in VA health care who gets care there at no cost to Medicaid. Not every state does, so ask the Medicaid ride line directly whether it takes members to the VA. Our guide to booking a Medicaid ride covers that call.

Medicare is narrower. Original Medicare pays for no wheelchair vans or other non-ambulance rides at all, and it covers ambulance trips only under strict medical rules.

For the ride company on a VA contract

VA checks that a veteran actually reached the appointment before it pays for a special mode trip. Companies that run on HealthRide keep a record of every trip with the real pickup and drop-off times and GPS-verified miles, and drivers capture signatures on screen in the app. See how the driver app records each trip.