hours cut to part time - FMLA or Not? pay COBRA for insurance?

bethann

We are a non-union mfg company. 50+ employees.

I have an ee that is 6 or 7 months pregnant. She informed me that she has a hernia and due to stress and pregnancy complications, her doctor has restricted her work hours. The ee normally worked 40-45 hours per week monday - friday. Her doctors note is to work monday, wed, & friday's with tues & thurs off. This is not a problem to accomidate her. My question is about FMLA and her medical insurance. Under the FMLA, we would keep her at the same rate on her insurance with the company paying 75% ee paying 25%. 1) With her working part time, is this considered FMLA because she is still working? 2) Do we have to keep paying the 75% of her insurance if she does not adhere to our full time policy? Our full time policy is that every 4th week ee has to work 40 hours to maintain benefits. Should I suggest to the ee that she work 40 hours every 4th week to maintain benefits? Please Advise.

Sincerely,

Bethann
Detroit, MI

PAhr

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 04-14-03 AT 01:10PM (CST)[/font][p]First off you need to start refering to this employee as someone who is taking intermittent/reduced schedule leave protected under FMLA. The the whole part-time, full-time thing is not an issue and you cannot take away anything that a regular, full-time employee is offered. She must make her portion of the medical insurance premiums as everyone else does but you cannot take away her benefits. You should also not tell the employee to work 40 hours on that one week as that would be interfering with her doctor's orders. Can't stress it enough. Treat her as you would any full-time employee.

Leslie

Place her on intermittent FMLA. It's a pain to administer, but it works, and it protects her insurance. You use either 12 consecutive weeks, 60 working days, or 480 working hours.

You can't change the way her premiums are paid when she's on FMLA.

POPEYE

Ditto to the above 2 posts!!!!!

bethann

Thanks for your quick responce. So then, after she has the baby, the "hours" left are what she can take as the remainder of her FMLA, if she needs more time, then we can charge her the COBRA on her insurance, right?

Leslie

>Thanks for your quick responce. So then, after she has the baby, the
>"hours" left are what she can take as the remainder of her FMLA, if
>she needs more time, then we can charge her the COBRA on her
>insurance, right?


Yup - and let her know immediately you are putting her on intermittent FMLA to protect her insurance, that it will be charged against the days/hours and when she does leave to actually give birth make sure she's aware of what she has left to care for the baby and recover.

njjel

Regarding the COBRA, you need to offer it to her and she would have to "elect" it first. (Maybe her husband has her covered under his policy and she won't need it, etc.)