Transportation to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: We Arrange the Whole Ride for You

Treatment day asks enough of a person already. Nobody should also have to solve a parking puzzle in the Longwood Medical Area, or wonder who is coming to get them after an infusion, or watch a family member take a fourth unpaid day off work to drive.

That is the part Care Remedy takes off your plate. You call once, tell us the appointment, and we handle the rest: the vehicle, the driver, the timing, and the ride home. Call 781-957-8076 and we will build the schedule with you.

Where You Are Actually Going

Dana-Farber is not one building, and knowing which location your appointment is at changes the entire trip.

Main campus, Longwood Medical Area 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215

This is the primary campus, including the Yawkey Center for Cancer Care. Vehicle access runs through Jimmy Fund Way, where the parking garage entrance sits on the right. Longwood is one of the densest hospital districts in the country, and on a weekday morning the approach can add twenty minutes to a trip that looks short on a map.

Dana-Farber also treats patients at:

• Chestnut Hill: 300 Boylston Street, Chestnut Hill (Newton), MA 02467
• Brighton: 736 Cambridge Street, Building C, 5th Floor, Brighton, MA 02135
• Foxborough: 22 Patriot Place, 2nd Floor, Foxborough, MA 02035
• Milford: 20 Prospect Street, Milford, MA 01757
• Merrimack Valley: 5 Branch Street, Methuen, MA 01844
• Attleboro: 20 O'Neil Boulevard, 3rd Floor, Attleboro, MA 02703
• South Shore Health: 101 Columbian Street, South Weymouth, MA 02190, with radiation oncology at 51 Performance Drive, Weymouth, MA 02189
• Londonderry, New Hampshire: 40 Buttrick Road, Londonderry, NH 03053

When you call us, give us the location name and the department. Care Remedy drivers know these campuses, and knowing the building in advance is the difference between arriving at the right door and walking a tired patient across a complex to find it.

Why Driving Yourself Is Harder Than It Sounds

Patients tell us the same three things.

• The first is that the drive home is the problem, not the drive in. Chemotherapy fatigue, antinausea medication, and sedation for a procedure all make driving unsafe hours after you felt fine walking in.
  
• The second is parking. Circling a garage while nauseated is its own small cruelty, and the walk from a garage level to a treatment floor is longer than most people expect.
  
• The third is that treatment is rarely one visit. It is a course. A schedule that works once may be exhausting by week six, and by then the family member who volunteered to drive has run out of vacation days.

Wheelchair or Ambulatory: Which Ride You Need

Ambulatory means the passenger can walk to and from the vehicle, with or without a cane or walker. Our driver meets them at the door, offers an arm across the lot, walks them in, and sees them to the right desk before leaving. It is the piece a rideshare does not include, and after an infusion it matters.

Wheelchair transportation means the passenger stays in their own wheelchair for the whole trip. Our wheelchair accessible vehicles use a ramp or lift and a four point securement system, so there is no transfer into a car seat and no folding a chair into a trunk. Tell us the type of chair when you book. Power chairs and bariatric chairs are heavier and wider than standard manual chairs, and we assign the vehicle accordingly.

If you are not sure which one fits, describe the situation on the phone and we will tell you. Patients often move between the two over a course of treatment, and we adjust as that changes.

Caregivers, and When a Responsible Adult Is Required

A family member is always welcome to ride along. Mention it when you book so the seat is held.

When nobody can come, we offer a caregiver escort who rides with the patient and stays through the appointment. That can mean sitting through a long infusion so the patient is not alone, taking notes when a doctor is explaining a plan, managing a wheelchair and a bag through a large building, and calling the family afterward with what happened. For adult children living out of state, this is usually the whole reason they call us.

One requirement to plan around. If a procedure involves sedation, the facility will typically require the patient to be discharged into the care of a responsible adult who receives the instructions, goes home with them, and in many cases stays for a set number of hours. At most facilities a hired driver alone does not satisfy that rule. Call the department scheduling the procedure and ask exactly what they require, ideally a week ahead. Then call us, tell us the answer, and we will arrange the transportation around it.

How Care Remedy Arranges the Ride

You do not coordinate this. We do.

• One call sets it up. Tell us the appointment date, time, location, and department, and where we are picking up.
• We build the timing backward from the appointment. Traffic into Longwood, garage access, and the walk to the floor are all figured into the pickup time.
• The return trip is arranged in advance. You are not calling for a ride while sitting exhausted in a lobby, and you are not waiting on a rideshare that cancels.
• If the appointment runs long, we adjust. Infusions get extended, doctors run behind, scans get added. Call dispatch and we move the return. That flexibility is the point of prearranging it.
• Recurring schedules are built once. Daily radiation, weekly infusions, a standing follow up: we set the whole course up in one conversation instead of rebooking every week.
• We keep the family informed. Tell us who should be called, and we call them.

Service Area

Care Remedy provides transportation to Dana-Farber from Boston and the surrounding communities, including Newton, Arlington, Lexington, Winchester, Woburn, Burlington, and Reading, along with the wider Greater Boston area. If your town is not listed, call and ask.

What to Have Ready When You Call

• Pickup address and the Dana-Farber location, including building and department
• Appointment time, and your best guess at how long it will run
• Whether the passenger is ambulatory or uses a wheelchair, and the chair type
• Whether a caregiver escort is needed, or whether the facility requires a responsible adult
• Equipment traveling along, such as oxygen or a walker
• A family contact number for updates

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you go to the Longwood campus at 450 Brookline Avenue? Yes, and to every Dana-Farber satellite location listed above.

Can you arrange the ride home in advance? Yes. Return trips are prearranged as part of every booking, and adjusted if the appointment runs over.

Can a family member ride along? Yes. Tell us when you book so the seat is reserved.

Do you handle a full course of treatment? Yes. We set up recurring schedules for radiation, chemotherapy, and follow up visits in one call.

Is this an ambulance service? No. This is transportation for scheduled appointments and stable passengers. In a medical emergency, call 911.

Reserve a Ride to Dana-Farber

Care Remedy provides wheelchair accessible and ambulatory transportation to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at 450 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, and to every Dana-Farber location across Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. Caregiver escorts available. Return trips arranged in advance.

Call 781-957-8076 to reserve your ride, or visit www.careremedy.com