FMLA Leave -Father in Nursing Home

tbehan

I know this subject has come up before, but is a FMLA request for a family member who is in a nursing home legitimate in all instances? I would be interested to find out what experiences anyone has had on this type of request.
Thanks

LindaS

Typically a person is placed in a nursing home due to the fact they can no longer care for themselves so there are probably a myriad of "serious health conditions" that would qualify a person for FMLA leave. In my experience, employees have only asked off when the person is initially being placed in the home (for meetings with the doctors, etc), if something major happens and the person is moved to the hospital or if the person is dying. I have NEVER run into an employee wanting time off to "visit" someone in the nursing home - they typically do that on the weekend.

HRPeg

The employee would no longer be required to care for the parent once the parent is in the nursing home, would they? It is my understanding that the initial consultations and transfers to the home are covered, but visitation once the parent is in the home is not as the parent is being cared for by nurses and doctors.

LindaS

Funny that you should ask - in determing "care" one of the things that is mentioned, specifically, in FMLA is that care also includes "psychological care". I would interpret this to mean that visiting someone in a nursing home, as long as everything else was qualifying, would be covered. It's not any different than someone visiting their spouse in the hospital after surgery - they have doctors and nurses to take care of them but it is psychological support.

Terri

Can I take this one step further? I asked to use 3 days of "sick" time (which I had accruded) to prepare the accounting for the inventory filed with the courts when my mother was made conservator/guardian of my father who is in a nursing home for alzhimers. I was refused and told to use vacation time. What do all you HR people think?

Rockie

Terri: I don't think there is any way FMLA can be stretched to cover this type of event. This appears to be assistance in preparation of putting someone in a nursing home. I would think you would have to use PTO or vacation time to cover this.

tbehan

Terri- I probably would agree with that decision especially since it appears that the choices were between sick and vacation time. If there was a third choice of personal time, this would be more accurate. Good reason to lobby for PTO time.
The psychological support as allowed under FMLA is an area that concerns me. Certainly, anyone wishing to, could use this as a means to get out of work, using intermittent FMLA tiime as an excuse to take time off. We have a classic example of such a case. Upon denial of FMLA time for a his mother, an employee attempted to seek a FMLA case for himself. We challenged both and it was determined in both cases that there was no qualifying reason to grant this as FMLA-it cost us to pursue, due to the 2nd an 3rd opinion costs, but it was worth it. Now comes less that a month later a request for FMLA because the father in in a nursing home. This from a person who has sought to wok part-time for years- there are no part-time jobs available. For the past sveral years he has taken FMLA leaves before we decided to challenge. By the way, he is in a union. Now I just wonder if anyone could suggest a way to address from the employer's standpoint.

Terri

Sorry for not responding sooner. I thank you for your responses and feel better about the denial to use sick time. Maybe it's because I've been so sick in my heart that I haven't been able to think clearly. Thanks again for putting me straight.