Houston Methodist GME is pleased to offer reimbursement for round trip transportation costs to trainees who are too fatigued to safely drive home and elect to use a transportation service to get home instead of driving their personal vehicle. It’s as easy as 1, 2, SAFE!
STEP 1: Simply, utilize the service of your choice (app-based) for the trip home, rest up and then use the service again to pick up your car at a later point in time.
STEP 2: Once you have completed the roundtrip travel, you will submit the receipts through the standard MARS travel reimbursement process within 30 days of the travel date. The GME Office will reimburse the ENTIRE cost (except for tips).
Yes, it’s that simple!
EXAMPLE TRAINEE USE:
Susan Icare, Houston Methodist resident, just finished her shift in the Texas Medical Center and feels very fatigued. She decides it would be safer to take a rideshare option than “power through” the drive home. She uses the rideshare service to ride to her home address in midtown Houston and rests for several hours. Later, she awakes feeling more rested and takes a rideshare service back to retrieve her car from the parking garage at Houston Methodist Hospital. She submits both rideshare trip receipts through MARS travel and entertainment within 30 days and any other required information, and the receipts are processed for reimbursement.
REIMBURSEMENT INSTRUCTIONS
App-based service reimbursement (Uber, Lyft, etc.)
Double-check that your receipt contains the following information:
Starting location
Ending location
Time and date
Your name
Total fare amount
Submit both receipts (trip home and return trip) through the standard MARS travel reimbursement process within 30 days of travel.
Frequently Asked Questions
Trainees may use the transportation service of their choice. This includes app-based services such as Lyft, Uber, etc.
Trainees may use the service ANY TIME they are feeling overly fatigued after work; not just after an overnight shift. Your safety comes first. Please do not get behind the wheel when you are overly fatigued!
No. The program’s intended purpose is for trainees that feel overly fatigued at the end of their shift. Houston Methodist accounting and IRS regulations prevent employee reimbursement for transportation to work. Therefore, trainees can NOT be reimbursed when preemptively using a transportation service to bring them to the hospital and then back home.
Yes, this option is available for use from any training site to a verifiable home address. This includes all Houston Methodist hospitals and Texas Medical Center rotation sites (Memorial Hermann, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, etc.).
No. The end location must be your verified home address in MARS.
Yes, absolutely. If the end destination is your verified home address, any round-trip from the training site to your home is fully reimbursable.
On your own dime! If you choose to use Uber, Lyft or a similar app-based service, make sure to select the basic service. Reimbursement will not be approved for luxury services.
