Mileage reimbursement for injured workers in Nebraska stays flat in 2018 despite increase in IRS rate

Injured workers travelling to medical appointments and vocational rehabilitation programs in Nebraska will not see an increase in reimbursement for mileage even though the Internal Revenue Service reimbursement rate will rise by $.01 per mile to $.545 per mile starting on January 1, 2018.

In a press release, the Nebraska Workers Compensation court stated the mileage re-imbursement would stay steady at $.535 per mile consistent with the reimbursement rate for Nebraska state employees. The failure to increase mileage rates will particularly impact injured workers in rural areas who need to travel to urban areas to seek treatment or get examined by specialists. The week before Christmas I travelled to the Nebraska Sand Hills region to visit a few clients. I visited a client in Ord, Nebraska who has to see a specialist in Kearney, Nebraska. The failure to raise the mileage re-imbursement rate will cost that client $1.41 per trip.

I visited another client in Loup City, Nebraska who is scheduled for an independent medical examination in Omaha in a few weeks. The failure to raise the mileage rate will cost that client $3.22 for the trip.

Nebraska’s refusal to raise the mileage reimbursement rate for state employees to match the IRS rate is consistent with efforts by the Ricketts administration to reduce state employment costs by a hiring freeze for state employees and end cost of living increases for non-unionized state employees.

The Nebraska Workers Compensation Court also announced the maximum benefit rate will increase from $817 per week to $831 per week. Unlike the mileage rate, the maximum benefit rate is set by statute in Nebraska. In Nebraska we take for granted that the maximum benefit rate will generally increase over time. But that isn’t the case in every state. In 2017 a judge in Alabama ruled that their state’s workers compensation system was unconstitutional because it had not increased the maximum benefit in nearly 30 years.