6 The Employee’s Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act
What Can the FMLA
Do for Me?
If you are faced with a health condition that causes you to miss
work, whether it is because of your own serious health condition
or to care for a family member with a serious health condition, you
may be able to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected time o under
the FMLA.
If you take FMLA leave, your employer must continue your health
insurance as if you were not on leave (you may be required to
continue to make any normal employee contributions).
As long as you are able to return to work before you exhaust your
FMLA leave, you must be returned to the same job (or one nearly
identical to it). This job protection is intended to reduce the stress
that you may otherwise feel if forced to choose between work and
family during a serious medical situation.
Time o under the FMLA may not be held against you in
employment actions such as hiring, promotions or discipline.
You can take FMLA leave as either a single block of time (for
example, three weeks of leave for surgery and recovery) or in
multiple, smaller blocks of time if medically necessary (for example,
occasional absences due to diabetes). You can also take leave on a
part-time basis if medically necessary (for example, if after surgery
you are able to return to work only four hours a day or three days a
week for a period of time). If you need multiple periods of leave for
planned medical treatment such as physical therapy appointments,
you must try to schedule the treatment at a time that minimizes the
disruption to your employer.
FMLA leave is unpaid leave. However, if you have sick time, vacation
time, personal time, etc., saved up with your employer, you may use
that leave time, along with your FMLA leave so that you continue
to get paid. In order to use such leave, you must follow your
employer’s normal leave rules such as submitting a leave form or
providing advance notice. Even if you don’t want to use your paid
leave, your employer can require you to use it during your FMLA
leave. For example, if you are out for one week recovering from
surgery, and you have two weeks of paid vacation saved up, your
employer can require you to use one week of your vacation time
for your FMLA leave. When you use paid leave for an FMLA-covered
reason (whether at your request or your employer’s), your leave
time is still protected by the FMLA.