Can I call his physician?

Stacy36

Are there any circumstances where I can call an employee's physician? The employee is on interm. fmla. These are the questions I want to ask.

1. If employee is sick due to condition?

2. What is prognosis of medical condition?

Can I also tell the physician how much time the employee misses and ask if the physician needs to be on STD? We just started offering fmla and this employee told us he needed fmla the same week. He was approved and ever since has been missing work quite frequently.

Rockie

When the employee completed his initial request for FMLA, he should have had the physician complete the paperwork specifying exactly what the "illness" was and the duration. If you suspect fraud, you can request the employee be evaluated by another physician (at your cost). It would depend what the condition is - some recurring conditions do not warrant FMLA protection; others do. I would not call their personal physician. Number one - even if you requested information from them, they would not give it to you because of privacy regulations. You can ask the employee to have their physician give more information, but the employee would have to request it.

Intermittent FMLA is fraught with these type of issues unfortunately. I hope that you have your PTO running concurrently with your FMLA so that vacation will be burning up the same time as the FMLA; otherwise, the employee will really take you for a free ride.

Theresa Gegen TX

There is a problem with calling the employee's physician. Most physician's will not talk about their patients unless the patient has given them authorization. Patient physician discussions are usually confidential. What I would suggest is to have the employee take a written list of questions to his doctor -- But you must ensure that these questions ask information that you, as his employer, Really need to know. Asking specifics about his condition that are not related to his ability to do the essential functions of his job is not something that an employer needs to know. For example, I have used this sucessfully when an employe comes back with a release saying "light duty", but does not define "light duty" any further.

If the employer thinks that the FMLA certification is invalid, there is a specific detailed way to challange it in the regulations. That does not involve questioning the employee's doctor. It involves getting a second and a third opinion at the employer's costs.

Good Luck!!