Drive time

When a provider goes from one session away from the clinic (at a home, school or community setting) to the next, the drive between them is work time. NeatPractice suggests each drive with an estimated length; the provider or a scheduler confirms the real minutes and miles. A confirmed drive becomes a drive time appointment on the provider's calendar and feeds payroll. Drive time is never billed unless a payer's code rules say so.

Open Schedule > Drive time. It serves every discipline that sees patients away from the clinic. Anyone who can see the schedule can view drives; confirming or editing one needs permission to manage appointments.

Confirming a suggested drive#

1. Choose the Provider and the Day.
2. Suggested drives lists each pair of back-to-back off-site sessions that day with time between them: when the first session ends, when the next starts, the gap between them and the suggested drive. Estimated means the minutes and miles come from a route estimate between the two places' map coordinates; without coordinates on both places, the suggestion is the gap between the sessions. Sessions with no time between them have no drive to confirm.
3. Open the row's menu and click Confirm. The dialog names the provider and the two session times.
4. Check the Minutes and Miles and change them to what the provider actually drove.
5. Click Confirm Drive.

The drive must end by the time the next session starts, so its minutes can never be more than the gap. NeatPractice says so when a drive does not fit.

How drives are estimated#

NeatPractice estimates a drive from the map coordinates of the two places (the location, or the patient's home, school or other service address): the straight-line distance, stretched by about a third for roads, at a typical local driving speed. No address is sent to a map service. Treat the estimate as a starting point; the provider confirms what they actually drove.

Drive time from home or an address#

To see how long a provider drives on a day, open any of their appointments on the calendar and click Drive Time in its summary.

1. Check the Day.
2. Under Start from, choose the Provider's home (the home address and map coordinates saved on the provider) or Map coordinates you type, such as a school or a meeting place.
3. Click Estimate.

Stops lists the provider's appointments that day in order, with the place (the location, or the kind of visit, such as Home visit, without the address), the drive from the start and the drive from the stop before. The line above the list adds up the driving from the start through the last stop. Telehealth appointments have no drive, and a place without map coordinates shows a dash.

Recorded drives#

Recorded this week lists the drives saved from Sunday to Saturday of the chosen day, for the chosen provider or, with no provider, for everyone. Confirmed marks drives a person checked. Open a row's menu and click Edit to correct the minutes or miles; the dialog names the provider and the sessions the drive sits between, and the drive time appointment on the calendar takes the new length.

Caps#

The Drive time caps panel at the top of the page sets the longest drive a provider can record between two sessions: Most minutes per trip (5 to 480) and Most miles per trip (0.1 to 999.9). Changing them needs permission to manage schedule settings. A drive over a cap is still saved: NeatPractice shows a warning when you save it, and the row shows an Over cap badge so a supervisor can review it.