So very true. If we stop to think about it, what they're saying when the try to argue about the distance is that they're assuming that we have nothing else going on and that we will always just be sitting at home waiting for their call and their documents. An effective response to that type of remark is that you may have other appointments that could be 10 or more miles in the other direction, so the distance from your home base is irrelevant. (Or tell them you DO have another appt...) Would they rather pay you based on the actual mileage from where you'll be driving from another appointment? I don't think so.
Those types of comments are just an attempt to squeeze a few more dollars out of us. Just as bad is the "we only make..." argument. Both show a lack of respect or concern for us or what we do. So I agree with Luckydog that we should have a base fee that we generally stick to. We need to use common sense, of course, but also understand that many ss are just trying to keep as much of the fee in their pockets (vs. yours) as possible. They don't really care how many miles you're putting on your car or how much of a time commitment you have to make for that one assignment for which they want to pay you as little as possible. They aren't going to pay more for you to drive to the farthest reaches of your base zone, so why should you get paid less to drive to the closer end?
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