Comparison
The best route planner for home health nurses, compared honestly.
Most route planners were built for parcels and sales calls. Here is what each kind does well, where it breaks on a visit day, and the six questions to ask whatever you choose.
Search for a route planner and you will find tools built for delivery drivers, sales reps and pest control. Some of them are good. None of them were built for a day that has insulin before breakfast, a wound care window, a lunch break that has to be real, and a patient who cancels at nine. Here is an honest read of the options.
The general-purpose maps
Google Maps
Free, and everyone already has it. You can add several stops to a route and drag them into an order. What it will not do: choose the order for you with time windows, hold a visit length, respect a lunch break, or re-solve when a patient cancels. It is the best navigation app on the list and not a scheduler at all.
Apple Maps
Multi-stop routes, excellent turn-by-turn, and it stays on the phone. The same limits as Google: you decide the order, it drives it. Obillions hands the actual driving to Apple Maps or Google Maps for exactly this reason: the navigation is already solved, the planning is not.
The delivery-style route optimizers
Circuit, Route4Me, Badger Maps, OptimoRoute, Onfleet and similar. These are real optimizers: give them addresses and they choose an order, some with time windows and service times. They are built for a driver with parcels or a rep with accounts, and priced per user per month.
- Where they are strong: pure route ordering across many stops, driver apps, proof of delivery, fleet dashboards.
- Where they are weak for home health: no concept of a plan of care or visit frequency, so they order what you typed but cannot plan the week; a cancellation is a manual re-run; there is no notion of a suggested time versus one a patient has agreed to; and a patient's address is being uploaded to a logistics vendor's cloud, which is a decision your compliance officer should be making, not the app store.
Home health EMR scheduling modules
The big home health EMRs all have a scheduling screen. It is where the visit frequency, the discipline and the authorisation live, so it is authoritative for what has to happen. It is usually a grid, edited in the office, and it usually knows nothing about distance. Several agencies run an EMR schedule and a separate route tool and reconcile the two by hand, which is where the scheduler's afternoons go.
What to look for, whatever you pick
| Ask | Why |
|---|---|
| Does it order by drive time with time windows? | Ordering without windows produces a route you cannot keep. |
| Can I change it from the car, hands-free? | The day changes while you are driving. Typing at a light is not a plan. |
| What happens to a cancellation? | The right answer is a ranked list of who nearby could take the hour. |
| Where do patient addresses go? | If the answer is a third-party cloud on the phone, that is PHI leaving your control. |
| Does it tell me when a visit will not fit? | Silence is the worst answer. A named reason is the only useful one. |
| Does it produce the mileage log? | A planned route should give you the reimbursement record for free. |
Obillions
Built for this job and nothing else. The week is planned from visit frequency, the day is ordered by a real solver with time windows, a lunch break and per-patient visit lengths, and you change it by saying what changed: "Arthur cancelled", "move Beatriz to ten". A cancellation returns who is nearest, ranked by the driving it would add. Every visit is marked suggested or agreed. Speech and referral photos stay on the phone; addresses are placed by servers we run. It is in private testing on iPhone, with a public TestFlight next.
Questions people actually ask
What is the best route planner for home health nurses?
There is no single answer. Google Maps and Apple Maps navigate well but do not choose an order with time windows. Delivery-style optimizers like Circuit or Route4Me order stops but know nothing about plans of care or cancellations. Obillions is built for the visit day specifically, and is in private testing.
Can I use Google Maps to plan a home health route?
For navigation, yes, and it is excellent at it. For planning, no: it cannot choose the order for you with time windows, hold visit lengths, respect a break, or re-solve when a patient cancels.
Do delivery route apps work for home health?
They order addresses well, but they have no idea what a plan of care is, treat a cancellation as a manual re-run, cannot tell a suggested time from an agreed one, and upload patient addresses to a logistics vendor's cloud.
Does my EMR already do routing?
Most home health EMRs have a scheduling grid that is authoritative for what must happen, but it is edited in the office and usually knows nothing about distance. Many agencies run a separate route tool and reconcile by hand.
Is patient address data safe in a route planner?
Only if you know where it goes. An address typed into a consumer or logistics app on the phone is sent to that vendor. Obillions geocodes addresses on servers we run and hands the drive to Apple or Google Maps as coordinates only.
Does Obillions replace my navigation app?
No. It plans and orders the day, then hands the actual driving to Apple Maps or Google Maps, which are better at turn-by-turn than anything we would build.
Obillions
A voice agent for a day of visits. You say what changed and the day re-plans itself: the order, the drive times, and who nearby could take the hour a cancellation just freed. Nothing changes until you confirm, and your voice and photos never leave your phone.
In private testing now. A public TestFlight comes next, then the App Store.