Intermittent FMLA

Sunny D

I have several employees that utilize FMLA on an intermittent basis for a family member. For example, one of the employees's medical certification indicates that the employee is needed to provide care, transportation, etc and the serious condition may be episodic. I have several employees that will state they need to leave to care for their children (one day this week, one day next week, etc). I'm trying to find out what else I can do, within legal guidelines, to validate these absences, outside of re-certifying every 30 days.

In addition, I have some employees who have lifelong chronic conditions and utilize FMLA intermittently for treatment and/or doctor visits. Since the information on the medical certification is not going to significantly change every 30 days, do you feel it's okay to re-certify these individuals say every quarter or 6 months? Would this create a huge pitfall for us in applying different re-certification timeframes (outside of every 30 days) to them?

Any suggestions/feedback you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

psrcello

I don't have much to offer on substantiating the absences for employees with FMLA due to family members' serious health condition. I've even found it difficult to do so for employees' own serious health conditions!

For the recertification issue, we used to recertify every 30 days, but doctors started to just photocopy the original certification and send us a copy every month - hardly meaningful. What we do now is recertify if there's a significant change in the employee's absences (i.e., used to miss only once in a while, now missing one or two days every other week), or if we have any reason to question the reason for the absence (i.e., employee calls in under FMLA when we know he's got a court date). Otherwise, we still get recertification at least once a year on the chronic conditions.

sonny

Can Sunny require the ee bring in a note from the Dr. on those times when ee says child is sick/has apt?

LindaS

The item I'm not noticing on the original post is if the children of the ee have qualifying medical conditions for FMLA leave in the first place. Although unfortunate, a one or two day illness for a child, even if they are not allowed in school and/or daycare, does not necessarily qualify for FMLA leave. If you do NOT have a situation wherein an employee's child has a qualifying chronic serious health condition, I would require the employee to provide medical certification each and every time they were requesting leave. If it does not qualify, do not approve it.

Once you have a situation with an employee who has a child with a chronic serious health condition that requires intermittent leave (i.e., asthma), you CANNOT require a doctor's slip each time they are absent once the intermittent leave has been approved.

sonny

Thanks Linda, that's what I thought, but just yesterday got "into" with my boss who said he could require it. Can you direct me to the reg.? I couldn't find anything. Thanks.

LindaS

Sonny - the DOL website [url]www.dol.gov[/url] provides the definition of a "serious health condition" under the federal regs. It specifically states that absences relating to either pregnancy or a verified chronic health condition qualify for FMLA leave even though the person and/or family member does NOT receive treatment from a healthcare provider and if the absence does not last more than three days. They also provide a couple of examples. Good luck and I hope this helps.

sonny

Thank you!