Certification Received 2 weeks late

Dfox

We just received certification for an ee that was out for a surgical procedure. This procedure would have been covered if we had received the appropriate documentation within the 15 day period. We didn't. It was over two weeks late. We had been in contact with the employee pertaining to this issue.

What should we do? Approve? Not Approve?

Geno

Dfox,

Someone else is going to ask, so I might as well...what are you talking about? Certification for what? Can you be a little more specific?

geno

Don D

I suspect I would approve it. You say you had been in contact. What was the nature and content of the contacts? Was it apparent that she was attempting to get the certification dealt with? Was it being completed or in transit or lost? There's really no reason to deal punitively with these situations unless the employee flat refuses to comply with your timeline restrictions and obviously will not cooperate with your requests.

Dfox

The contact was made in person when she applied for leave, on the phone, and then when she returned from leave. She claims it was the health care provider's fault. We can't verify that.

Whatever

We have many cases where the doctor is in no rush to complete the paperwork. In those cases, and in this one, I would give the benefit of the doubt and approve.

Gillian3

The outcome of this will depend on what was going on between the employee and the doctor. FMLA is written to protect the employee and the employer will rarely win on a technicality such as you describe.

marc

I would approve it. Then you get to start the FML clock. Would you have otherwise given the EE some sort of attendance write up or assessed no-fault attendance points? I ask because lots of companies do not rigidly enforce these policies.

If that is the case, there is no benefit for the EE to have a job protected that was not in danger from this event, so the only advantage to be gained is for you as the ER to start the 12 week clock.

I suppose another downside would be the precedent you set for allowing late paperwork - which could cut against you if you decided to make an issue of this with another EE at a later date.