Sick Pay & STD / Time Off For Birth

Dutch2

Do you require your ee's to use all their accumulated sick pay before they are eligible to receive STD?
Also time off for child birth... In the good old days you could pretty much count on a set number of weeks off for natural child birth (6 I think) and c-section (8 or 9). However today, one doc' will say fewer, but most in our area are saying more. We have an opportunity where an ee had natural child birth with no problems and the doc is saying she needs to be off work for 8 weeks. Strange that this is the exact amount of time that the ee had been telling her co-workers prior to delivery that she would be off with the baby. Don't know how far I want to push this as in second opinions etc, just curious if any others were having to deal with this same stuff and if yes what you have done about same.
Thanks,
Dutch2

mushroomHR

We do not require employees to exhaust their PTO prior to STD. Of course, you know this allows employees to be off for a long time on STD, come back, and leave again to use up their vacation time before the end of the year. Frustrating but management won't change the policy.

I have had instances where an employee has gone on FML/STD for childbirth and the employee's doctor certified her STD for 12 weeks for a normal delivery! Of course she told her doctor she would be taking 12 weeks for FML so the disability was certified for 12 weeks. I had a doctor contact the employee's doctor to straighten this out and the disability was miraculously reduced to 6 weeks--hmmmmmmm... We were paying our own disability at that time but now I have a third party doing the claims administration and they intervene when something questionable arises.

I feel your pain.

Carey

I know our third party administrator for STD would probably not continue STD benefits beyond 8 weeks for an uncomplicated childbirth without medical documentation that is satisfactory to them. We would continue the person on their leave, obviously, still FMLA for the 12 weeks, but they would not receive disability pay.

We leave this completely up to the TPA. We would not get involved in questioning or contacting doctors.

Whatever

You have two different issues here. The first is STD. We leave that issue up to our carrier. The second is FMLA. Under FMLA, new parents are entitled to time off to bond. Also, you should check to see if your state has a medical leave act.