Human Resource Blog

FMLA

An employee has requested FMLA for his own medical problem but his doctor has not sufficiently answered the required questions, thus the employee has not yet been granted FMLA. Now, the employee says to cancel his request for FMLA. What should we do to protect ourselves? He has not called off very much ever, even due to this particular problem. He is a good worker and we do want to keep him. We do not foresee a problem with him being hurt at work because of this condition. Thank you.

It sounds as if you gave this employee the FMLA certification papers (WH 380-E), and the employees doctor did not fill them out completely. Note that under the new 2009 regulations, the doctor is under no obligation to share a diagnosis with you. However, it is surprising that the doctor did not provide enough information — the info requested on the certification is relatively straightforward.

Assuming that the employee did turn the certification papers in to you, you should notify the employee in writing that his FMLA request has been denied due to insufficient information from his doctor. This notification should be on form WH-382 or a similar form. (If the papers were not supplied to you, you may want to notify the employee that his request has been denied due to you not receiving the certification papers.)

Other than this, you should treat this employee as you would any other employee, and address his attendance if and when it becomes a problem. There are no other actions to take, since you believe the employee is fit to be on the job and his condition does not pose a risk to himself or others.

Find links at the bottom of this site for the recommended forms: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/