FMLA - please help
UTHR
1 Post
Hello,
I am new with FMLA and seeking for help on matter related to FMLA
We have employee requested for 4 months to go back to his country care for his wife (serious health condition). He left company without turn in Medical Certification. We sent out designation letter enclosed with Meical Certification with deadline of 15 days. His sister faxed back the Medical Cert and the duration request is 90 days. The Medical Cert was signed by emp but not the patient's health care provider (reason that they speak a different language). He faxed over the Certificate of Diagnosis also ( I aware that we don't need to know the patient's Diagnosis)
Q:
1. Should we still keep his Insurance benefit? and if yes, how long?
2. Is he still eligible for VAC accumulate and receive holiday pay?
2. Can we terminate his benefit after 12 weeks of LOA?
3. Can we deny his eligibility for FMLA since his Medical Cert wasn't signed by health care provider?
Please advise for a proper process as an ER must do.
Thanks,
Comments
You could treat this as inadequate certification and give the employee an opportunity to cure the certification. Tell him what he needs to do for valid certification (e.g., get doctors' signature, get doctor's med information for cert., etc.). If you are not using the government's WH-380 certification form, remember that you CANNOT ask for more than is asked on the WH-380. Give him a reasonable amount of time to cure the certification (since they are out of the country and there are language issues, perhaps 7-10 days, or whatever reasonable period your policy dictates). Finally, he should already know what the ramifications of failing to provide medical certification are (if he was given adequate notice). Since this is leave for a family member's serious health condition, remember that the employee can be needed for psychological or other support (very lenient standard), so unless you have a good reason to doubt that the wife has a serious health condition, I would tread lightly.
If the employee still fails to provide adequate notice after being given a reasonable chance to cure and you have good reason to doubt the validity of his request for FMLA leave, it is possible to deny FMLA, and any deny any other leave/benefit protection (assuming that he has no accumulated leave coming to him).
If you do not require medical certification in every event for a family member's serious health condition, and you have good reason to believe that this is a valid claim for leave, I would go ahead and designate the leave as FMLA leave. Then he would have 12 weeks of job-protected leave, with health insurance (assuming ther is a covered group health plan and he continues to pay any premium he is required to pay for coverage). Whether or not he accumulates other benefits during FMLA leave depends on the employers practice/policy regarding benefits during non-FMLA leaves.
Under FMLA, the employee has 12 weeks of leave. If he does not return at the end of the 12 weeks and he has been given all proper notice of leave period, termination of leave, etc. (and he is not otherwise protected or using additional paid leave), he has no right to reinstatemetn at the end of leave.
What are the proper notifications when FMLA has been exhausted? What if the ee is out with a serious illness, ie cancer, that you know will extend past 12 weeks?
You aren't entitled to a diagnosis, but employees often provide information that isn't required and that's not always a bad thing. Since you now know or strongly suspect that the employee's spouse has a serious health condition because you have the diagnosis (assuming the diagnosis is for a serious health condition), you are pretty much stuck. The certification language talks about "as soon as is practicable" and other undefined things that generally mean that you should err in favor of the employee unless you would like to be a test case.
Under the circumstances, language barriers and national boundaries, a lot of leeway should be given to take care of the cert.