DWC048 - Request to Get Reimbursed for Travel Costs
Getting Reimbursed for Travel Costs
When comp care means driving across Texas, the mileage, lodging, and meals can be reimbursable. The DWC048 is how you claim it, and the small rules decide how much you actually get back.
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What this form is
The DWC048, Request to Get Reimbursed for Travel Costs, asks the insurance carrier to repay travel expenses for claim-related medical care: trips to distant treating doctors and specialists, and travel to examinations like designated doctor and required medical exams. For workers in rural Texas, where the nearest comp-experienced specialist can be hours away, these travel costs add up fast, and this form is how you get them repaid.
When you can use it
Reimbursement applies when the travel meets the rules' distance requirement (a minimum one-way distance to reasonably available care) and the care itself is claim-related. The distance threshold and the reimbursement rates are set by reference to state travel rules, so the current numbers aren't printed on the form itself; check them (or ask us) rather than guessing.
I can't afford the gas to get to the state doctor's exam. Do I just miss it?
No. Missing the exam is the one thing you must not do: skipping a designated doctor exam (the state-ordered exam that often decides whether your checks keep coming) can suspend your benefits. If you can't afford to get there, ask the adjuster to arrange transportation. Carriers keep lists of transport vendors for exactly this situation, and the adjuster can book and pay for the ride.
This surprises almost everyone, because the DWC048 pays you back after you travel, which is no help if you don't have the money to make the trip in the first place. Transportation to a required exam is the exception: it can be arranged and paid up front by the carrier. Ask in writing the day the exam notice arrives, and if the adjuster doesn't answer, follow up and copy the adjuster's supervisor rather than skipping the appointment. No reimbursement problem will ever cost you as much as a missed exam.
The small rules that reduce what you get back
- Mileage is measured to reasonably available care. Driving past three qualified doctors to a fourth you prefer can mean reimbursement measured to the closer option.
- The starting point matters. Mileage from somewhere other than your home or workplace can be measured from whichever qualifying point is closest to the provider, which can shorten the mileage you're paid for.
- No receipt means no reimbursement, and only the right kind of receipt counts. Adjusters deny on the details. Meals need the itemized restaurant receipt; a bank or card transaction record gets rejected. Hotels need the folio (the itemized statement you get at checkout); a reservation confirmation gets rejected. A companion's meal is never reimbursed. A date missing its year gives the adjuster an excuse to deny that expense. Keep every receipt, write full dates, and keep a per-trip log (date, provider, purpose, odometer) so nothing depends on memory.
- It goes to the carrier, not the state. Send the completed form and documentation to the adjuster; mailing it to DWC only delays your payment.
- There's a time limit. Submit within the filing window (a one-year limit applies); don't hold receipts so long that the deadline passes.
- One form per date of service. Bundling many trips onto one form makes payments impossible to trace when the carrier pays some lines and not others. One form per trip date keeps every payment matched to a request.
Two more habits save money. Scan receipts and forms with a free phone scanning app instead of photographing them; photos get rejected as unreadable, scans don't. And ask your doctor whether any visits can happen by telehealth where medically appropriate, because a telehealth visit costs you nothing in travel and requires no reimbursement request.
One worry you can set aside: some workers hold back their mileage forms during a benefits or rating dispute, hoping not to remind the carrier about their claim. Submitting travel reimbursement has no effect on any dispute deadline, including the 90-day window to dispute an impairment rating (the doctor's percentage for permanent damage). Waiting accomplishes nothing except bringing your receipts closer to the one-year deadline.
If the carrier ignores or shorts you
The carrier has 45 days to respond to each submission, and many use every day of it. Mark day 45 on your calendar when you send the form; silence past that date isn't normal processing, it's a missed deadline you can point to. Reimbursement requests that get no response, or that come back reduced without explanation, are disputable. Ask the adjuster in writing for the basis of any reduction, and if it doesn't resolve, the fee dispute process exists for exactly this kind of payment dispute (Medical Fee Disputes: When Providers and Carriers Fight Over Bills).
Travel reimbursement is a small expense for the carrier and grocery money for an injured worker, which is exactly why shorted mileage and ignored requests so often go unchallenged. Keep the log, keep the receipts, send the form to the right place, and don't accept silence as an answer. If your travel requests are being ignored, or the numbers coming back never match the miles you drove, mention it to one of our attorneys, especially if it's happening alongside other claim problems; patterns like that usually aren't isolated. Asking us costs nothing.
3 pages · Rev. 07/21
