CBCA 8381

THIS OPINION WAS INITIALLY ISSUED UNDER PROTECTIVE ORDER AND IS BEING PUBLICLY RELEASED IN ITS ENTIRETY ON OCTOBER 24, 2025 DENIED: October 16, 2025 CBCA 8381 NORTH EAST MOBILE HEALTH SERVICES, Appellant, v. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, Respondent. Jeana M. McCormick and Jennifer S. Riggle of Drummond Woodsum, Portland, ME, counsel for Appellant. Jennifer L. Hedge, Office of General Counsel, Department of Veterans Affairs, Pittsburgh, PA, counsel for Respondent. Before Board Judges BEARDSLEY (Chair) and ZISCHKAU. BEARDSLEY, Board Judge. North East Mobile Health Services (NEMHS) challenges the change to the calculation of the costs paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the second leg of a round-trip wheelchair transport. NEMHS elected disposition of this appeal by two Board judges under the accelerated procedure in Board Rule 53. 48 CFR 6101.53 (2024). Both parties moved for summary judgment. For the foregoing reasons, the Board denies NEMHS’s motion for summary judgment, grants the VA’s motion for summary judgment, and denies the appeal. CBCA 8381 2 Background On September 27, 2019, the VA and NEMHS entered into a contract under which NEMHS was to provide “non-personal wheelchair transportation services to beneficiaries of the Togus Maine VA Medical Center.” Respondent’s Exhibit 5 at 1. “Service [was] to include transport to and from Togus VA as well as [to the] Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC’s) in Bangor, Rumford, Lewiston & Saco.” Id. at 6. The contract’s base period of performance ran from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2020, with four option periods. The VA exercised all of the options on this contract with an end date of September 30, 2025. Respondent’s Statement of Undisputed Material Facts (SUMF) ¶ 32. “NEMHS provides both one-way and round-trip transportation services” under the contract. Appellant’s SUMF ¶ 3. For one-way trips of twenty-five miles or less, the VA paid NEMHS a base rate, and, for one-way trips over twenty-five miles, the VA paid NEMHS a base rate for the first twenty-five miles plus a mileage rate for miles traveled over the twenty- five-mile threshold. Id. ¶¶ 10-11. NEMHS, however, billed the second leg of a round trip differently than the first leg, even though the contract does not specify a mileage reimbursement formula for round trips. Id. ¶ 12. “Beginning with the first invoice submitted under the [contract] and continuing through approximately at least November of 2024, NEMHS billed for round-trip loaded transports as follows: for the out leg, it billed for a base trip rate and all mileage over 25 miles for that leg, and for the return leg, it billed for a base trip rate and all mileage for that leg.” Id. ¶ 20. Starting with NEMHS’s October 2024 invoice, the VA refused to pay NEMHS for the full return leg mileage because it determined that each trip, under the contract, was a separate one-way trip to which the one-way rates should apply. Id. ¶¶ 48-52. As an example, for a seventy-five-mile one-way trip, the contract required that NEMHS charge the VA the base rate ($204) for the initial twenty-five miles of the trip and then charge $7 per mile for the next fifty miles of the trip or for each mile over the twenty-five mile threshhold ($350) for a total of $554 for a seventy-five-mile one-way trip. Respondent’s SUMF ¶¶ 28, 29, 55, 57-61, 70. For what NEMHS classified as the return leg of a round trip (also seventy-five miles long), NEMHS charged the VA the base rate ($204) for the initial twenty-five miles of the seventy-five-mile total and charged the VA for all seventy-five miles of the return leg ($7 x 75 = $525), for a total of $729. Id. ¶¶ 55, 62-63, 68-70. In effect, this double-charged the VA—$204 base rate + $7 per mile—for the first twenty-five miles of the return leg of the round trip. See id. During this contract, NEMHS asserts that “VA transportation supervisors and finance officials” indicated to NEMHS that NEMHS should bill for the full mileage for each return CBCA 8381 3 leg of a round trip loaded transport. Appellant’s SUMF ¶ 22; see id. ¶¶ 21, 23. NEMHS points to two occasions in the record in which “VA officials [with a copy to the COR] would affirmatively identify NEMHS’s [failure to bill for all of the mileage on the return leg of a round trip loaded transport] and instruct NEMHS to re-submit the invoice with the full mileage for the return leg.” Appellant’s SUMF ¶ 24; see id.