As a home health aide, your work is vital. You show up—rain or shine—to care for patients in their homes with compassion and dedication. But while you're busy helping others, who's making sure you're being fairly paid for all the time and effort you put in?
Here’s what many aides don’t realize: under both federal and state law, your employer is legally required to pay you for the time you spend traveling between patients during your workday—and, in states like Massachusetts, reimburse you for mileage and travel-related costs.
If they haven’t? You could be owed thousands of dollars in back pay. At Phillips Garcia Law, we’re here to make sure you get every dollar you’ve earned—and we do it with zero upfront cost to you.
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What the Law Says About Travel Time Pay
Let's be clear: Both federal and Massachusetts law protect you.
Federal Law (FLSA)
At the federal level, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) establishes your baseline rights. The Department of Labor’s regulations (29 C.F.R. § 785.38) specify that time spent by an employee in travel as part of their principal activity, such as travel from job site to job site during the workday, is work time and must be counted as hours worked. This means that travel between patient homes during your shift is always compensable work time under federal law.
However, a worker who travels from home to work and returns to his or her home at the end of the workday is engaged in ordinary home-to-work travel. This is a normal incident of employment and is generally not compensable under federal law.
Massachusetts Law
Massachusetts law offers even stronger protections.
- Paid time between appointments during your workday (not including the drive from your home to the first patient or from the last patient back home)
- Compensation at your regular hourly rate for travel time, unless another clear agreement was made when you were hired
- Mileage reimbursement and other transportation costs like tolls and parking
Under the Massachusetts Wage Act, as specified in M.G.L. c. 149, § 150, you could recover treble damages (3 times the amount of unpaid wages) plus attorney fees and costs if your employer is guilty of wage theft. That means if your employer owes you $10,000 in unpaid travel time wages, we could help you recover up to $30,000 or more.
Common Ways Employers Cheat Home Health Aides Out of Pay
Home health aides across Massachusetts are losing money every single week—and the worst part is, most don’t even realize it’s happening. When you’re busy caring for patients, managing your own family responsibilities, and juggling a packed schedule, it’s easy to overlook small gaps in your paycheck or confusing time logs. But those gaps are often signs of something much bigger: wage theft.
Some employers in the home healthcare industry knowingly take advantage of the chaos and unpredictability of your daily schedule. They rely on you being too busy, too tired, or too trusting to notice that you’re not being paid fairly. They take shortcuts with your pay, hoping you won’t ask questions or speak up.
Here are some of the most common ways they do it:
- Not tracking travel time correctly—or at all. Some companies fail to log your travel between patient visits as paid time. They may tell you it's “just part of the job” or assume you’ll accept unpaid driving as normal. But legally, time spent going from one patient’s home to another is work time, and they are required to track and pay for it.
- Structuring your schedule to “hide” travel time. Employers may space out your appointments or arrange visits in ways that disguise the time you spend on the road. For example, scheduling 10:00 a.m. visits in one city and 11:00 a.m. visits 30 minutes away without accounting for the travel time in your pay. This kind of manipulation isn’t just unfair—it’s illegal.
- Paying less than minimum wage for in-between travel. Even if you're technically being paid something for travel time, some employers shortchange you by using a rate that’s not your regular hourly rate, may be below Massachusetts' minimum wage, or by not counting all your travel hours. That’s a violation of state wage laws—and it adds up fast.
- Paying for mileage but not travel time. Often, employers will reimburse employees for mileage and tell employees that they are not entitled to be paid for travel time and mileage. Employers are always required by law to pay for travel time, even if they pay for mileage.
- Refusing to reimburse for mileage and transportation costs. Gas isn’t free, and your car doesn’t maintain itself. But some companies refuse to reimburse for fuel, wear-and-tear, tolls, or parking—even though you’re using your personal vehicle for their business. These out-of-pocket costs can eat into your income and cause real financial strain. In Massachusetts, employers are required to pay for mileage in addition to travel time. Under federal law, the failure to reimburse for mileage costs can bring your hourly wage below minimum wage, which is a violation of the federal minimum wage law.
Employers have no excuse for not being fully compliant with the law. By examining your pay stub or wage statement, talking to you and comparing this information to the data from the app your employer uses to track patient visits, we can calculate precisely how much you are owed.
Here’s just one recent example of our success in handling wage theft claims for home health aides:
In Neves v. Guardian HealthCare, LLC, we represented a class of home health aides who alleged that their employer failed to pay legally required travel time, overtime, and mileage in violation of the Massachusetts Wage Act and related statutes. By certifying a multi-tiered class and leveraging detailed employment and payroll data, we negotiated a $650,000 settlement that provides automatic, pro-rata compensation to affected home health aides..
What’s at Stake? Your Family’s Financial Stability
At Phillips Garcia Law, we see people like Maria every day.
A single mom with two young children, Maria spends her days driving from one patient’s home to another, clocking miles in her aging Honda Civic while juggling tight appointment windows and the constant pressure of living paycheck to paycheck. Though her patients love her for her calm presence and gentle care, her employer shows no such appreciation. Each week, Maria works six-hour days with no lunch break, yet her paycheck only reflects the hours spent inside homes, not the hours spent behind the wheel, traveling from one patient to the next.
It might not seem like a big deal at first—just a few unpaid minutes here and there. But those 15–30 minute drives between patients, day after day, can easily turn into several hours of unpaid work every week. Multiply that over months, or even years of employment, and you could be missing out on thousands of dollars.
That’s money that could help pay for:
- Groceries and school supplies
- Childcare or eldercare for your own loved ones
- Car repairs or gas to get to work
- Rent, bills, or savings for your family’s future
You work too hard to let your employer quietly take that money from you. You’ve earned it—with every mile you drive, every minute you spend on the road, and every ounce of care you give to your patients.
You Give Everything to Care for Others. Don’t Let Your Employer Take Advantage of Your Time.
If you work as a home health aide in Massachusetts and believe your employer has failed to pay you for travel time, contact Phillips Garcia Law today. We provide free consultations to evaluate your case and explain your rights under Massachusetts law. Our firm represents home health aides throughout Massachusetts, including New Bedford, Dartmouth, Fall River, Boston, Brockton, and surrounding areas in Bristol County, Plymouth County, Barnstable County, Suffolk County, and Norfolk County.