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Earlier this month, the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division issued new model forms for employers to use when administering employee leave under the FMLA. The revised model notice of rights, certification, and designation forms were immediately effective and are now available to assist employers and employees in meeting their FMLA notice and certification obligations.
The federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) covers private employers with 50 or more employees as well as public agencies and public and private elementary or secondary schools, regardless of the number of employees. The FMLA generally entitles eligible employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a 12-month period for specified family and medical reasons and additional leave to care for a covered servicemember.
All covered employers must post a general notice about the FMLA (FMLA poster) in each workplace and distribute a notice to new hires. Additionally, covered employers who have FMLA-eligible employees must provide them with notices about: FMLA eligibility status, rights, and responsibilities; when specific leave is designated as FMLA leave; and the amount of time that will count against their FMLA leave entitlement. When an employee requests FMLA leave due to their own or a covered family member’s serious health condition, or for military family leave, the employer may require appropriate certification.
The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) released revised versions in mid July of its model notice of rights, certification, and designation forms under the FMLA. According to the WHD, the new forms, which are effective immediately, are “simpler and easier for employees, employers, leave administrators and healthcare providers to understand and use.”
The following updated FMLA forms are now available to assist employers and employees in meeting their FMLA notification and certification obligations:
These optional-use forms can be used by employers to provide required notices and by employees to provide certification of their need for FMLA qualifying leave. The new forms are electronically fillable PDFs that can be saved and transmitted electronically. Employers may still use the agency’s prior model forms or they may use their own forms, as long as they provide the same basic notice information and require only the same basic certification information.
To some extent, the new model forms simplify FMLA administration by substituting check boxes for some previously required written responses. The revised Notice of Eligibility & Rights and Responsibilities form contains additional information on the substitution of paid leave and concurrent leave usage during a qualifying FMLA absence. The revised certification forms similarly include additional information on the circumstances in which employers may obtain follow-up information from health care providers and are reorganized to make it easier to determine whether a serious health condition exists. As the WHD made clear, an employee who already provided the required FMLA information using the old certification form cannot be required to provide that same information using the revised form.
Notably, the WHD did not revise the FMLA poster or issue a generic “Fitness-for-Duty” certification. Further, the new forms do not address the paid sick leave or expanded FMLA leave requirements of the Family First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is suggesting changes to the forms employers commonly use to administer the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The DOL said its goal is to make the optional forms easier to understand, but some management attorneys worry doctors will be confused by the revisions.
The department is seeking comment on the proposed revisions through Oct. 4th. It noted that the proposed changes would include:
The proposed revisions are an improvement, but most still view the forms as lengthy. The increased reliance on check boxes would avoid the confusion that results when a health care provider filling out a medical certification has poor handwriting.
“Physicians do not like completing FMLA forms as a general rule,” said Scott Eldridge, an attorney with Miller Canfield in Lansing, Mich. “Employers should therefore welcome attempts to simplify the process for employees and their physicians.”
While health care providers often provide narrative responses to the questions on the current forms, the responses don’t always clearly indicate whether the health care provider thinks the employee has a serious health condition. This usually ends up with the the employer being left to surmise as to the doctor’s intent or go back for a clarification. The new check boxes would help minimize the need for clarification.
The presentation of questions on the existence of a serious health condition are an improvement as well.
The current forms ask if the patient was admitted for an overnight stay or when the patient was treated, whereas the proposed forms ask if the patient has been admitted or is expected to be admitted for an overnight stay and the days they were seen or will be seen. Under the current forms, the health care provider is not encouraged to explain future inpatient status or future treatment. Contemplation of future treatment is critical, since employees are required to report leave at least 30 days in advance when the need for leave is foreseeable.
The revised forms also capture information to support leaves taken for chronic conditions and permanent or long-term conditions, while the existing forms do not.
Incomplete certification forms often delay employers’ designating leave as FMLA. The proposed revisions would reduce follow-up by presenting the questions on intermittent leave in a more organized manner.
Current forms ask for the health care provider to estimate the hours the patient needs care and provide a somewhat confusing and misaligned template to record the frequency and duration. The proposed forms have a tidy template for use to complete the duration and frequency and instruct the health care provider to provide their best estimate.
The proposed revisions also note that some state or local laws may prohibit disclosure of the patient’s diagnosis. This note supports compliance with laws such as the California Family Rights Act and is helpful for employers using a single form to designate federal FMLA and state leave.
The proposed revisions do have some problems, according to Sarah Platt, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Milwaukee.
The layout of the proposed form to certify an employee’s serious health condition has check boxes that are likely to be missed, she said. “The new form would call for the health care provider to check a box on the left side of the form for the type of serious health condition at issue, and then also complete check boxes within each category,” she said.
“The forms seem to call for health care providers to make legal conclusions at issue, rather than merely answer questions,” she added. “I would not be surprised if we see health care providers checking boxes in multiple categories on the proposed certification forms.”
While follow-up on FMLA medical certification is common, that often is because a health care provider skips questions on the current forms or writes something vague, such as “unknown.” The new forms will not necessarily eliminate this problem.
The proposed medical certification forms organize the questions around the different definitions of a serious health condition. The existing forms gather the same information but do not include headings highlighting the different definitions.
Platt is concerned that with the proposed revisions, health care providers may answer questions that don’t apply to the circumstances involved in the leave request. “I think it would be helpful to at least have a check box for ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘not applicable’ along the left margin for each section,” she said.
The forms the DOL has proposed updating are:
Employers cannot permit employees to use PTO or other paid leave prior to using unpaid FMLA leave for an FMLA qualifying condition, according to a new Department of Labor Opinion Letter. The Opinion Letter also provides that employers cannot designate more than 12 weeks of leave per year as FMLA (or 26 weeks per year if leave qualifies as FMLA military caregiver leave).
Under the FMLA, covered employers must provide eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job and benefit-protected leave per year for qualifying medical or family reasons (or up to 26 weeks per year for qualifying military caregiver leave). The Opinion Letter addresses the situation where an employee anticipates a leave of absence for an FMLA-qualifying reason and the employee wants to take off more than the 12 weeks allotted under the FMLA by using other available paid leave policies (such as vacation, sick pay, PTO, etc.) at their disposal. Under this scenario, the employee notifies the employer that he or she plans to exhaust an available paid leave policy first for an FMLA-qualifying reason, and then after that time has run out, he or she desires to take the 12 weeks of FMLA leave.
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The IRS released its first piece of guidance on the newly added credit for paid family and medical leave in the form of FAQs. The FAQs provide helpful information as employers work to either implement conforming paid leave policies or ensure that their current policies are sufficient. However, the IRS acknowledged that additional guidance is needed.
Background
As part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted and signed into law in late 2017, Congress added section 45S to the Internal Revenue Code. This section allows employers to claim a general business credit for providing paid family and medical leave to certain employees. In order to be eligible for the credit, the employer must have a written policy that allows no less than two weeks of paid family and medical leave annually. This amount is prorated for part-time employees. The written policy also must provide for payment of not less than 50 percent of the amount normally paid. Although section 45S references the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), the leave does not have to be provided under the FMLA provisions. Instead, it can simply be allowed under the employer’s policy. If, however, the employer is not covered by the FMLA, the employer’s written policy must include a non-retaliation clause.
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The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) forms expire June 30—not on their original expiration date of May 31—but experts believe they aren’t likely to change when they’re replaced with new forms.
Employers who customize their own forms aren’t too concerned with the imminent replacement of the current forms, but employment law attorneys disagree on how much the DOL forms might be tweaked.
The FMLA forms are used to certify that an employee is eligible to take FMLA leave and to notify him or her of leave rights under the law. The forms expire under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, which requires the Department of Labor (DOL) to submit its forms at least every three years to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval, so the OMB can ensure processes aren’t too bureaucratic.
The DOL is renewing the current FMLA forms on a month-to-month basis until it replaces them with new forms. But the new forms may be virtually identical to the current ones with just a different expiration date.
In 2015, the DOL made a few minor tweaks to the FMLA forms so they would conform with the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
There have not been substantive changes to FMLA or its regulations in the past three years that would require changing any of the information provided or sought on the current forms, noted Tina Bengs, an attorney with Ogletree Deakins. So it is likely that the new forms, once issued, will be approved for the maximum three-year period.
Customization of Forms
Some employers customize the DOL-recommended forms for their own use, observed Steven Bernstein, an attorney with Fisher Phillips. For example, some employers are covered by state and federal FMLAs and adjust the federal forms to reflect state law requirements. Others make minor changes, such as referring to workers as “associates” rather than “employees.”
On occasion, employers incorporate reference to their accrued leave policies, while others adopt robust language disclaiming liability under the FMLA, he said.
He cautioned, however, that an employer can be held liable for using a form that harms the employee by misleading him or her about FMLA rights, and recommended that any changes be reviewed by an outside expert to ensure that added language does not inadvertently conflict with the FMLA.
Monica Velazquez, an attorney with Clark Hill, prefers customized forms so that employers aren’t handing workers documents with the DOL logo. The logo makes the forms look more official than they are, she said, and emphasizes that their use is optional.
It is recommended if you are going to create customized FMLA forms to copy and paste the information from the DOL form into the employer’s own form. If the employer plans to use its own language, use plain English and bullet points, she said. Keep things as direct as possible.
For example, instead of an open-ended question about the employee’s treatment schedule, a customized FMLA form might ask the doctor to choose a frequency of treatment—every week, month or year—and circle the response. This would reduce the challenge of reading doctors’ often illegible handwriting. Less space for handwritten information also would reduce the chances of doctors’ filling certification forms with confusing medical lingo.
Many employers put the information about health conditions at the top of the medical certification forms, as it’s the first piece of information the employer wants—what ails the employee or family member—so the employer has a better sense of whether the employee is covered by the FMLA.
FMLA Forms
The current DOL forms are:
The new federal tax law, signed by President Trump in December, contains a number of provisions that will impact the workplace and employers. One specific change has to do with the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). As many are aware, FMLA requires employers to provide certain employees with up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave annually for specified family and medical reasons. The leave may be paid or unpaid.
To encourage employers to provide eligible employees with paid leave under FMLA, the new tax law provides eligible employers with a new business credit equal to 12.5% of the amount of wages paid to “qualifying employees” during any period in which such employees are on family and medical leave as long as the rate of payment under the program is at least 50% of the employee’s normal wages. The credit increases from 12.5% by 0.25 percentage points (but not above 25% of wages) for each percentage point by which the rate of payment exceeds 50%. The credit can be used to lower an employer’s taxable income, subject to limitations, and applicable alternative minimum tax. The amount of paid family and medical leave used to determine the tax credit for an employee may not exceed 12 weeks.
To be eligible for the credit, an employer must have a written policy that provides all qualifying full-time employees with at least two weeks of annual paid family and medical leave. Part-time employees are also to be allowed a commensurate amount of leave on a pro rata basis. Qualifying employees are those who have worked for the company for at least one year and were paid no more than 60% of the compensation threshold for highly compensated employees in the previous year. (For 2018, 60% of the compensation threshold is equal to 60% x $120,000 = $72,000.)
For purposes of the credit, any leave paid for by a State or local government or required by State or local law shall not be taken into account in determining the amount of paid family and medical leave provided by the employer. For example, if a jurisdiction, such as Chicago has an ordinance that provides paid sick leave for FMLA-permitted purposes, an employer will not qualify for the business tax credit if the paid leave is provided to be in compliance with the ordinance. As a result, it is important that the employer have a clear policy in place.
The Secretary of Treasury will determine whether an employer or an employee satisfies applicable requirements for the employer to be eligible for the tax credit based on information provided by the employer as the Secretary determines to be necessary or appropriate.
If the employee takes a paid leave for other reasons, such as vacation leave, personal leave, or other medical or sick leave, this paid leave will not be considered to be family and medical leave for purposes of the credit.
The credit is effective for wages paid in taxable years starting on January 1, 2018. It is set to expire for wages paid in taxable years beginning after December 31, 2019.
In late April, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that it soon will issue a new general FMLA Notice that can be used interchangeably with their current FMLA posting. In issuing this new directive, they also unveiled a new guide to help employers navigate and administer the FMLA.
Here’s the scoop:
Under the FMLA, an FMLA-covered employer must post a copy of the General FMLA Notice in each location where it has any employees (even if there are no FMLA-eligible employees at that location). According to the FMLA rules, the notice must be posted “prominently where it can be readily seen by employees and applicants for employment.”
The DOL has announced that it will release a new General FMLA Notice for employers to post in their workplaces. According to the DOL, the new poster won’t necessarily include a whole bunch of new information. Rather, the information in the notice will be reorganized so that it’s more reader friendly.
The DOL’s Branch Chief for FMLA, Helen Applewhaite, confirmed that employers would be allowed to post either the current poster or the new version. In other words, employers will not be required to change the current poster.
In 2012, the DOL issued a guide to employees to help them navigate their rights under the FMLA. Several years later, DOL now has issued a companion guide for employers. According to the DOL, the Employer’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act (pdf) is designed to “provide essential information about the FMLA, including information about employers’ obligations under the law and the options available to employers in administering leave under the FMLA.”
The new guide was unveiled by the DOL at an annual FMLA/ADA Compliance conference sponsored by the Disability Management Employer Coalition (DMEC). Generally speaking, the new guide covers FMLA administration from beginning to end, and it follows a typical leave process — from leave request through medical certification and return to work.
While the guide helps explain the FMLA regulations in a user-friendly manner, the guide primarily is meant to answer common questions about the FMLA, so it leaves unanswered leave issues that continue to frustrate employers in their administration of the FMLA. However, the guide is likely to have some benefit to employers when administering the FMLA. For instance, the guide:
While the rest of us were enjoying our Memorial Day holiday, the Department of Labor was busy posting the new model FMLA notices and medical certification forms… with an expiration date of May 31, 2018!
No more month-to-month extensions or lost sleep over when the long-awaited forms would be released.
That said, it couldn’t have taken DOL a whole lot of time to draft the updated forms. After a relatively close review of the new forms, the notable change is a reference to the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). In the instructions to the health care provider on the certification for an employee’s serious health condition, the DOL has added the following simple instruction:
Do not provide information about genetic tests, as defined in 29 C.F.R. § 1635.3(f), genetic services, as defined in 29 C.F.R. § 1635.3(e), or the manifestation of disease or disorder in the employee’s family members, 29 C.F.R. § 1635.3(b).
The DOL added similar language to the other medical certification forms as well. For years, employers have included GINA disclaimers in their FMLA paperwork, and those disclaimers typically have been far more robust (and reader-friendly) than the cryptic one the DOL used above.
For easy reference, here are the links to the new FMLA forms:
The forms also can be accessed from this DOL web page.
The Department of Labor has issued a final rule that will allow an employee to takeFMLA leave to care for a same-sex spouse, regardless of whether the employee lives in a state that recognizes their marital status. This rule change will impact the manner in which employers administer FMLA leave.
Where We Were
The FMLA regulations have guided us since their inception that the term “spouse” was to be defined according to the law of the state in which an employee resides, as opposed to the jurisdiction where the marriage was entered. This distinction became particularly significant after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as unconstitutional. Before Windsor, that section restricted the definition of marriage for purposes of federal law to opposite-sex marriages. Consequently, federal FMLA leave was generally not available to same-sex married couples even in states that recognized gay marriage. Windsor effectively extended FMLA rights to same-sex married couples, but only if they resided in a state that recognized same-sex marriages, even if they were legally married in another state.
After the Windsor decision, President Obama instructed federal agencies such as the DOL to review all relevant federal statutes to implement the decision and, as expected, the DOL took it as an opportunity to apply Windsor to the FMLA regulations. In June 2014, the DOL adopted a proposed “state of celebration” rule, in which a spousal status for purposes of FMLA is determined not on the state in which the employee currently resides (as currently stated in the FMLA regulations), but based on the law of the state where the employee was married. Thus, if two individuals of the same sex get married in a state that recognizes same-sex marriage, they are considered to be married for federal FMLA purposes even if the state in which they live and work does not currently recognize same-sex marriage. For example, if the employee was married in New York, but now resides with his same-sex spouse in Texas, the employee will enjoy FMLA rights to care for his spouse as if he had resided in New York, since they were married in New York and that state recognizes the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Where We Are Now
After issuing its proposed rule in 2014, the agency now has announced that, on February 25, 2015, it will issue a new final rule (to take effect March 27, 2015) providing that the definition of “spouse” indeed is determined by the state in which a marriage is entered (i.e., the “state of celebration”). As the DOL points out, a place of celebration rule “allows all legally married couples, whether opposite-sex or same-sex, or married under common law, to have consistent federal family leave rights regardless of where they live.” The DOL notes that, as of February 13, 2015, 32 states and the District of Columbia (as well as 18 countries) extend the right to marry to both same- and opposite-sex partners.
A copy of the DOL’s fact sheet on the final rule can be accessed here.
What Does This Mean for Employers?
Here’s what employers need to know and do:
1. As an initial matter, determine whether the FMLA applies to you. If so, you should:
2. Whether or not FMLA applies to you, you should determine whether any state leave law applies to you. These laws may differ on their definitions of same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, and may offer different leave rights depending on the protected category.
3. Keep in mind two particular FAQs on This New DOL Rule (taken, in part, from of the DOL Final Rule FAQs):
Q. Can employers require documentation to verify that a same-sex or common law marriage is valid?
A. The Final Rule makes no changes to the manner in which employers may require employees who take leave to care for a family member to provide reasonable documentation for purposes of confirming a family relationship. An employee may satisfy this requirement either by providing documentation such as a marriage license or a court document, or by providing a simple statement asserting that the requisite family relationship exists. 29 C.F.R. § 825.122(k)
Here’s the catch: It is the employee’s choice to provide a simple statement or another type of document. And DOL has us in a trick bag as to when we can and should ask for reasonable documentation. On one hand, the agency tells us in the final rule, “Employers have the option to request documentation of a family relationship but are not required to do so in all instances.” It also rejected calls for instituting a standard in which employers would be required to show that they requested this documentation in a consistent, non-discriminatory manner. Yet, on the other hand, the DOL is quick to point out that employers “may not use a request for confirmation of a family relationship in a manner that interferes with an employee’s exercise or attempt to exercise his or her FMLA rights.”
Thus, from a practical standpoint, shouldn’t employers institute a consistently-applied, non-discriminatory policy when asking for confirmation that a family relationship exists? In a word, yes. Otherwise, employers risk a claim that they are treating certain employees in a discriminatory manner, thereby interfering with their FMLA rights.
One thing is clear: If an employee has already submitted proof of marriage to the employer for another purpose, such as in electing health care benefits for the employee’s spouse, the DOL finds that “such proof is sufficient to confirm the family relationship for purposes of FMLA leave.” So, employers, no second bites at the apple if you already have this information!
Q. Does the Final Rule Change the Manner in Which Employees Take FMLA leave to care for a child to whom they stand in loco parentis?
A. No. In June 2010, the DOL recognized that eligible employees may take leave to care for the child of the employee’s same-sex partner (married or unmarried) or unmarried opposite-sex partner, provided that the employee meets the in loco parentis requirement of providing day-to-day care or financial support for the child. (You can find more on the in loco parentis rule in DOL Fact Sheet #28B.) In other words, this new rule has no impact on the standards for determining the existence of an in loco parentis relationship.