Maybe. A federal court decision has found that attending mandated therapy was compensable time. (It’s important to note that the court also pointed out that its finding in this case was very fact-specific.) The case involved an emergency dispatcher who left work abruptly one day under stress. Her employer mandated weekly psychotherapy as a condition of her continued employment. In response, the employee filed a wage suit alleging that she should have been paid for the time she spent in the one-hour sessions as well as the two hours of travel time to and from the sessions, which took place outside her standard work hours.

According to the court, the time spent attending and traveling to and from therapy sessions was compensable because the sessions were necessary and primarily for the employer's benefit.

The court rejected the employer's claim that medical treatment always primarily benefits the employee. Rather, the court concluded the therapy sessions were to help ensure the employee “properly responded to emergency calls and stayed on the job in a position that was short-staffed.” Of significance were the facts that

1. the therapy was a mandatory condition of employment;
2. the employer was short of dispatcher staff;
3. the employer covered 90 percent of the costs of therapy; and
4. the employee could not see her own therapist, rather, the employer insisted she see its approved provider.

“We find it odd that [the employer] would not let [the employee] see her own therapist if [it] believed that these counseling sessions were for her benefit,” the appeals court noted.