Home Health & Hospice Week

To no one’s surprise, the Internal Revenue Service has once again upped its mileage rate.

“Beginning on Jan. 1, 2023, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 65.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 3 cents from the midyear increase setting the rate for the second half of 2022,” the IRS notes in a release.

Home health and hospice agencies “can reimburse employees up to 65.5 cents per mile traveled with no tax impact to the employee,” explains consulting and accounting firm The Health Group in Morgantown, West Virginia.

“Given continuing increases in costs associated with vehicles used to support hospice services, each hospice must determine its own policy regarding payments to employees for the use of their personal vehicle,” The Health Group advises.

Back in July, the mid-year IRS rate change to 62.5 cents per mile was up 4 cents from the rate effective at the start of the year (see HHHW, Vol. XXXII, No. 22-23). At press time, the current regular gas price was $3.285 per gallon. That compares to the highest-ever recorded price of $5.016 on June 14, according to AAA. At press time the year-ago average gas price was $3.293.