Fmla Return To Work Certification: Fill & Download for Free

Your employer can't ask for your medical history.They can ask for verification that the dates you were away from work were for medical reasons that are valid under FMLA.Your doctor does not need to explain what condition required treatment or what treatment was provided. They do need to certify the dates that you needed to miss work due to a medical condition or treatment for such.In many instances, employers large enough for FMLA to apply will use a 3rd party to process and verify FMLA claims. (The last one I worked with used MetLife.)No matter how they process your claim, your employer cannot ask for the details of your medical condition, but they can ask for certification of a medical need for leave.

I’ve been a single Mom and sole income for 16 out of 17 years since I was 18 years old. I was always extremely ambitious and I’ve had a good 40 jobs working in pretty much every field you can imagine. I typically always had 2–3 different jobs going on at the same time. This does not include my authoring, publishing, and the hundreds of writing/editing freelance and singing gigs I’ve performed. I’ve attended 14 colleges and collected quite a variety of degrees, diplomas, and certifications.My children were raised by babysitters and childcare providers the first 11 years of their lives, of which one full-time job was needed just to pay for their childcare alone. My own mother was a workaholic and my four siblings were 4, 7, and 15 years younger than I, so the babysitters and childcare providers were random strangers with a high turn-over rate. Not a very consistent and secure upbringing for young children, to say the least. Nor was it safe. Some of the providers were decent. Most were not.By the time I was 25 years old, my daughter 3, and my son 5 1/2, I was putting in 100 plus hours a week 7 days a week. Even when I was home from work, I was not THERE with my children, because I was tripling up on college classes, doing my freelancing, writing novels and continuing to try to get my books published, in addition to cooking and cleaning and trying to keep my home spotless as was instilled in me by my mother as well. I remember my son being so needy for my attention that he and I came up with a plan where I would set my alarm every hour, and when that alarm went off, I would then spend 20 minutes doing whatever he wanted to do to try to keep him happy. But still that hour of letting me work was really hard on him. I remember working on a recorded speech for my public speaking class, and it took me 8 hours of re-recording, because my daughter would keep climbing up on my lap in the midst of me recording my speech and I would have to start all over again.I told them repeatedly throughout the years (and told myself) that what I was doing was absolutely necessary. I would cry how hard and how unfair it was to have been left in the position of being a single mom and sole income with hardly any family support. I would convince myself I didn’t do anything wrong. After all, I’d been engaged to be married when my son’s father walked a month before our wedding, and then told me he was too young to be married. Though years later, my daughter came as a surprise, I was with the guy that I was going to spend the rest of my life with … until he determined he didn’t want to be a family guy. I didn’t choose this life. It was the hand I was dealt and I was trying to do my absolute best by it. Just because I was a single parent shouldn’t mean that my children should be raised on the system and that they should be more disadvantaged and have less things than other children in two-income or two-person homes. That is what I told myself. I’d tell my children, “I just need a couple more years. That’s why I’m tripling up on college courses. Once I get my degree, I’ll be able to get a higher-paying job and then only have to work one job, and then once I get my PH.D, I can set up an office right from home and work for myself as a Psychologist, and then I’ll be home with you guys all the time and we’ll have all the time together in the world.”Two years later, I had over 20,000 to put down on a house so my kids could have their own bedrooms and never have to live in an apartment where the downstairs neighbor is cooking meth or the next door neighbor is screaming bloody murder while getting the crap beat out of her, or I’m being placed in unsavory situations just to try to keep my kids from being without a place to sleep. We finally had a home. Safety. Security. … As long as I could keep paying the thousand dollar mortgage every month for the next 30 years. But I’d graduated with near perfect scores, and had applied for a joint JD/PHD program and a scholarship, and I’d gotten 100 on my Civil Service Exam to work for the state with start-out salary at $43,000 a year, insurance, 401k. Things were looking really good. My kids were happy and liked their new home and bedrooms. And I even got a few weeks home with them while waiting for the State job to start where training would last a couple months 8–4 Monday through Friday and weekends free. I’d always worked weekends. Always worked holidays. By the time I started the State job, my scholarship for SU came through. I was devastated that I didn’t get into the JD program even though I’d taken the LSAT twice to achieve higher scores than average, which is what I got. Just average. Guess I’d just have to accept being only a Psychologist and not a Lawyer too.That first month, it was like a dream come true. Home at 6 every night to actually be able to have sit-down dinners with my children, Friday family-fun nights, tuck them into bed and read bedtime stories and say our prayers together, and then I’d still have a good 3 or 4 hours to do my writing and keep submitting my novels to publishers before bed. … The second month, all I wanted to do was cry, because of how exhausted I was. From waking up, getting my daughter to school, the hour commute there, being in training for 8 hours, the two hour commute to pick up my son, making homemade meals, cleaning the house, getting the kids bathed and to bed, and hardly even being able to keep my eyes open thereafter. Then the weekends of 14-hour days with young ones that were constantly bored and wanted me to entertain them and then having to make three meals a day and have to clean it up three times a day and constantly do dishes? It was crazy. I was going crazy. I looked forward to the end of training where I would go back to working second shift and weekends, and I looked forward to beginning my graduate classes during the day when my kids were in school.I underestimated the overwhelming amount of mandated overtime every other day and consecutively on weekends. 16 hour shifts and working both second and third shift and not getting out until 8 in the morning. What was the point of my children having a home and their own bedrooms if they had to sleep at a sitter’s house where I wouldn't even be able to get back in time to get my daughter to school? She was tardy 46 times in that year, and I began getting notices from the school threatening to take action. I moved in a friend who had two kids and had just lost his job, where his kids could have room and board in exchange for him taking care of mine when I was at work and getting my daughter to school on time.SU came at me with concerns that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the workload of full-time college, a full-time job, and the mandatory field hours. The state job I’d gotten was in the mental health field and I assumed it would count as field hours. How could working in a State Psychiatric Center not count for field hours in mental health? That’s when one shoe dropped. It would not count as field hours and I would have to choose between my state job or my graduate degree or forfeit my scholarship and only attend college on a part-time basis. I had to choose what was paying for my mortgage. The other shoe dropped when I helped my roommate get another job and encouraged him to find a girlfriend and I wound up with a note and him moved out, leaving me abruptly without a babysitter. Then my entire foundation collapsed when I wound up with a court petition seeking for me to have my son on weekends, whereas previously his father had him while I was working my 32 hour weekends, and the court ruled in his favor. I had to choose between my son and my job.I chose my son, resigned from my position with the state, and being unemployed, I advertised for tenants to rent our home, and my children and I were back to sleeping on friend’s couches or staying with the tenants. I had to start at the bottom again, but I couldn’t find a job that would pay more than 10 an hour, regardless of my degree, which wouldn’t allow me to financially survive while paying childcare costs. Work-from-home jobs were becoming increasingly in demand at that point, so I determined I would go for it. I got a job working for Sprint with $9 an hour start-out-pay that only required I work one day on the weekend and I would be home, so I wouldn’t have to pay a sitter. That still being poverty-level, I was back on the system again with Medicaid and SNAP benefits and back on the waiting list for HUD housing. The tenants wound up being awful and not making their payments, so I had to go through the process of evicting them, and that thousand dollar mortgage continued to loom over my head. We returned to the house after evicting the tenants, whom wound up stealing a lot of the furnishings that came with their renting the house, including my table and couches.9 an hour was hardly enough to cover the mortgage and living costs, so I was the fastest-ever employee to get a supervisor role. 9.50! That’s all I got. $.50 more an hour, which wasn’t specified when I did everything to be able to get the promotion. I was back to working 7 days a week again, and when I wasn’t working the job, I was scouring and applying for freelance work for extra money. I remember my children knocking at the door to my office, continuously, asking if I was done working, wanting me to spend time with them. I remember getting so frustrated with them and crying because the requirement of my work-from-home job was to ensure there was no background noise, and my children would start running around and playing or more-often-than not fighting and I was so paranoid of losing my job, so my agitation and frustration would come out on my children. “Do you want me to lose this job? Do you want to lose this house again and your bedrooms? Do you want to be back out on the streets?” I’d cry at them. Only 6 and 8 1/2 years old and I demanded quiet during the 8 hours I was on the phone with escalation calls and ticked off customers.I worked the at-home job a year and two months. Four of my family members died in that time. I wasn’t able to see my Poppy in the hospital before he passed because of work. Nor was I able to see my Aunt when she went into surgery for her cancer, which she died of soon thereafter, because she was in the same hospital as my 26-year-old brother whom had shattered his skull and was comatose, and I only had limited time to be by his side before I had to return to work. That almost got me fired because I had to take off of work to go see him, and it was my trainer that vouched and fought for me that saved my job. I was not there when my brother died. And a few months later, my 52-year-old Dad wound up hospitalized and placed in a medical coma. I was so afraid that he would die and I wouldn’t be there, but I was more afraid of losing my job, so when the Doctor assured me that he wouldn’t die that evening, I rushed home to prepare for work the following morning. 20 minutes home, I got the call. ‘Your Dad just passed.’When I logged into work next, and my first call came in, a customer yelling about their bill and calling me worthless after I’d done everything in my power to get him credited $120, which was more than the maximum credit we could provide, I stopped being able to breathe, my mind fogged over and went blank, I could no longer remember how to do anything while the customer kept yelling and degrading me. It was the first time I’d ever just hung up the phone. A few days later, I made arrangements for my children while waiting for the pills I’d OD’d on to end my life, because I couldn’t even manage to keep a job and provide for my children. At that moment, I felt like I’d failed everyone.You see, during that same period of time when I’d gotten my scholarship and the State job, I’d already been through a number of specialists and Doctors throughout the years that I’d been getting increasingly sick. Right before starting my state job, I was diagnosed with a debilitating illness that required treatment in order to keep it from getting worse. I had finally just gotten to the point of being able to work only one job, like I had promised my children all those years before. I had no intention of letting anything get in my way or letting anything stop me. I denied the Doctor’s diagnosis and told him I wanted a second opinion. I just never went and got one at that time, so I remained untreated, and took the risk of my amnesia and blackouts getting worse and lasting for longer periods of time.I went on FMLA from the Sprint job, while waiting for my memories to return. Each passing day, I remembered less and less until I no longer even remembered how to log in to the system. Per my superiors and customer ratings, I’d been pretty tech-savvy and knew how to do just about anything with every type of cellphone out there. I’d gotten a high-paying freelance job to write up a manual on the new Galaxy that had just been released. Those memories never did return to me. To this day, when you see me poking around my smart phone, I’m like a kindergartener learning how to use a phone for the first time. I’d sit in my office for hours for days on end, thinking that at any moment, it’d come back to me. It had to. My children’s financial well-being depended on it. I finally went for the second opinion and the diagnosis was the same, as it was for the third opinion, and for the federal Doctor that then placed me on total disability. I remember her looking at me and shaking her head and saying, “I don’t even know how you managed to work the jobs that you did.” I don’t know why she said that or what she meant by it, but it was the only part of the evaluation that I could even remember, so I didn’t even know what to go based on to figure out what she meant.Thereafter, I began treatment, ambitious and determined as I always was. They said it could take 10–15 years of consistent treatment to get me stabilized and functioning well enough to be okay. I figured if I doubled or tripled up on my treatment and learned how to treat myself the remainder of the time, I could fast-forward the whole process and be done with it and go back to being completely normal and a contributing member to society once again. I hated being on disability. Not to mention, it couldn’t even cover one month’s mortgage, let alone all my other bills. That first year, I spent more time being bedridden than out of it, but it humbled me to the core. In a way, it was like seeing my children for the first time. My daughter 7 and my son almost 10. Where was my 3-year-old? When did she grow up? Where was I? I couldn't remember birthdays or holidays. Couldn’t remember holding her as a baby. My kids would say, “Mom, do you remember when …?” And I was hearing it for the first time, because no, I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember anything. I didn’t remember my own childhood. Could hardly remember much prior to being 28. I couldn’t even remember when my daughter took her first step or spoke for the first time. My kids had been raised by sitters. My babies were gone. And I’d missed out on SO much. I do remember how much it bothered my son when I forgot his birth year, and how much it bothered both of them when I would cook something and they’d say, “Mom, you know I hate red sauce. I can’t stand sour cream.” And I’d smile and say, “Since when?” “Since always, Mom. I’ve told you a hundred times.”While being extremely ill, and having no option of being able to go back to work at that time, I got to know my children. I learned about their lives. They shared their memories with me that I didn’t have. I learned what they liked and what they didn’t like. Their favorite books and movies. Who their friends were. I tried to make up for as many memories and moments as I could. But it was all bittersweet. Because I was a worker. It’s all I’d ever known and the only life I could remember. I struggled with severe depression. I needed to work. I felt worthless, without purpose or meaning, useless, a waste of human existence. I hated being on disability. I hated telling people I was on disability where they’d look me up and down and be like, “You look fine to me. I forget things too. It’s normal.” I’d be called lazy. Told that I just didn’t want to work and wanted to live off the system. My self esteem, self confidence, self efficacy, were in the negatives. Christmas was coming round, and I was behind on my mortgage while trying to get a home loan modification. I had nothing to offer my children.My amazing son said to me, “Mom, all I want for Christmas is the first published copy of The Modules, and I want it dedicated to me so I can show all my friends and teachers at school.” Alongside that, I’d gotten free scrap wood to be able to build things. I worked tirelessly, but for Christmas, my son had the one and only hardcover copy of the combined versions of The Reform and The Modules, dedicated to him, and I’d built my daughter a desk with family and growing-up photos laid out all along the top of it. Of course only a few months hadn’t been enough time for me to publish the books, so my son’s copy was a pre-release. Humility forgotten, I then went on to write 15 novels the next couple years, publishing 10 of them, and checking off my bucket list all the things I’d wanted to accomplish.I got three months behind on my mortgage (Primarily because I was told I had to be three months behind to qualify for a home loan modification that would lower my mortgage), and then the bank just stopped accepting my payments, enabling them to foreclose on the property within a month if I didn’t pay them everything I owed. In addition, I was getting restless being at home all the time, and I wanted to go back to working in the outside world. Disability allows a person to try to compensate their disability income with a little over a grand a month of supplemental income. I took the job that hired me the fastest, starting at the bottom once again, as a delivery driver this time. My daughter was 11, very emotionally mature, and independent, so I believed she was old enough to supervise herself without needing childcare and with me only working part time. Working part-time as a delivery driver with GPS to get me to-from where I needed to go if I couldn’t remember, alongside disability, should have been sufficient. I should have been happy with that. Should have been okay with that. Should have remembered I was on disability for a reason. I didn’t remember. Within 6 months, I was working 6 days a week, training for management, and happily giving the middle finger to the Social Security Administration, telling them I was cured and healed and back to work full-time and I didn’t need them anymore.My responsible 11-year-old daughter fed herself, showered herself, put herself to bed, got herself up for school, went to school, completed her homework, kept her grades up. She’d stay up later than she should have, waiting for me to come home, just so she could hug me and say goodnight. There were times we didn’t see each other for 2–3 days. There were times when I was at work, hanging out with my coworkers, when I would lose track of time, forget that she was waiting for me, and I wouldn’t remember until I was speeding down the road and running through the door and throwing all my things down just to collapse to the floor and bawl my eyes out when she’d already gone to bed because I was too late. While at work, I would be asked to work every holiday and I couldn’t see why not. Of course I’d work the holiday. I don’t have anything else going on. Only once driving home would I remember that I had children and I’d smack myself up the head and feel like the worst mother in the world for scheduling to work a holiday, so I’d hurriedly make arrangements to celebrate Christmas on my day off of work. I’d walk through the door and see dishes piled up, my house unkept, four loads of dirty laundry stacked high. I’d look in the mirror and not even recognize myself. Take off my work hat. How long had I been wearing the same uniform? When did I shower last? And it was a total blank. I couldn’t remember.I could have been showering twice a day, not remembering that I already showered, or not showering for a week thinking I’d just showered. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’d come home from work and check my email and see that I had a five-book contract with my publishing business. I’d check my calendar and find I had author events stacked up. A new release coming out. Promotions going on. I’d emailed the owner with a business proposition and had books coming in with a free-pizza coupon at the back of the book. I’d emailed the school superintendent with an order form for all these books with the free-pizza coupon to be provided to all the students in the school district where all proceeds would go to the school district for their fundraising needs. I remembered none of it.Before I could even much figure anything out, it was my daughter’s 13th birthday. My son and I wrestled and his knee pressed on the wire of my bra while he was trying to hold me down, and the metal won out over the bone. I fractured one of my ribs. And for 3 days, I’d wake up, not remember, and go to work, and not understand why I was in so much pain. The third night, I was practically in tears and couldn’t finish my shift. I blamed myself for being a baby. The following day when I was due to work, we’d been dumped on with three feet of heavy snow. I couldn’t even lift the shovel. The pain was excruciating.Just like those many years before, I stopped being able to breathe. My mind fogged over. All I could hear was shouting in my head of how worthless and useless I was. How it didn’t matter how much pain I was in or the circumstances, I needed to go to work. My kids financial well-being depended on it. I could feel everything fading away. All my memories. Like a numb, emotionless robot, I picked up my phone and called my girlfriend manager whom had depended on me those years while the owner had done nothing but screw me over every time he returned to the store and I told her it was the end of the road. Those feelings of failure returned. For my children, I should have sucked it all up and just found a way to keep working. You don’t get paid if you don’t work. Broken bones, serious illnesses, hospitalizations, don’t matter. The bills don’t get paid if you don’t work. And those kids don’t get a home, a comfortable bed to sleep in, heat and electricity, or food to fill their stomachs, medical care and insurance, if those bills don’t get paid. It was another extremely tough year filled with illness, depression and self-loathing, but with it, my humility was returned to me once again.My kids are now 17 and almost 15 years old. I imagine, I, like many parents, thought I would beat the odds and still be having fun game nights and slumber parties with my teens, instead of each of us cherishing our own space. I, like so many working people, thought I could somehow later make up for the lost time.I was a workaholic. I am now a recovering workaholic. I was raised that work comes first above any and everything else, but not just any work. It had to be respectable work. A steady paycheck, so anything that did not bring in a steady paycheck was not respectable. Working from home, even if it did provide a steady paycheck, was not respectable. Medicaid or Snap benefits. Not respectable. Being disabled - a joke. (Just because you’re blind doesn't mean you can’t work. You are completely capable of working a job that doesn’t require you to have to see anything -as an example). My daughter’s grandfather was diagnosed with cancer one year before his retirement. So affronted by the idea of being considered disabled or placed on disability before being ‘respectfully retired’ resulted in unnecessary hardship in addition to his cancer.All I’d ever wanted was to be able to raise my own children, watch them grow, be there for every big and small thing in their lives. I resented every time the sitters would tell me about some priceless moment I missed out on. I would have given anything to be home with them. In the earlier years, when they were younger, I resented all the bosses and all the jobs that didn’t respect that I was a single parent. That would so frequently put me in the position of having to choose between my children or my job. I resented having to work one full-time job just to pay for childcare, and an additional job or two to still not even be able to make sufficient income to cover the bills. One paycheck was just to cover the gas money of the commute. Years of savings would only account for another vehicle I would have to purchase to get back and forth from work. So, so, so many of these jobs would ask that you work 5–6 days a week without going over 32 hours to avoid offering health insurance. Not having a babysitter, not having a vehicle or transportation isn’t an excuse to not attend work. Everything I strove for was to get to a place where I could work for myself, make enough to provide my children the same type of life as those less disadvantaged, and be available for my children - while doing so in a ‘respectable fashion’ so as not to be judged or stereotyped.Overtime, it just became a way of life for me.I stay home now. I spend most of my days now sitting at my kitchen table, staring at the wall, trying not to get caught up in any work or projects (key word is trying), so that the moment that one or the other of my teenagers come out of their room and take a break from their own things, I might be able to spend a little bit of time with them. Know what’s going on in their lives. Try to support and encourage them. Even if all I get is 15 minutes in a day. It’s like Cat’s in the Cradle and the Silver Spoon. I have all the time to finally be there for them, but they rarely have time for me anymore.The majority of the time I sit at my kitchen table, waiting to just have those few minutes to spend with my teenagers, I’m still being harassed for not working a ‘real’ job. Outside the house. Collecting a steady paycheck. Because that’s what ‘normal working people do’. Everything inside my being wants to go back out there and work and make something of myself and go further with my life. The only thing that keeps me staying at home and doing my work at the desk that is placed beside my kitchen table is wanting to make up to my children all the times I was never there because I was too busy working while they were being raised by three dozen other people and random strangers that were being paid to care for them. I realized that there were a hundred other different choices I could have made. I could have easily gotten an at-home data entry job, or several of them, with my ability to type 120 words per minute. I could have been happy with selling my books and running my publishing business that allowed me to be at home with my children.All those years, I convinced myself and my children that I couldn’t be available to them as a full-time mother until I achieved x, y, z. Now I know that it was all based on pride and me just trying to prove myself. It was me wanting to go after every dream I ever had personally, while also wanting to become something my parents would be proud of. When it came to my children, it was complete selfishness. I always put my kids on the backburner in light of my own achievements and accomplishments, while justifying it all with being a single parent with no support while just trying to pay the bills. My kids could have run around with wild abandon and been happy if I just picked up that data entry job, or online support chat. But it was never good enough for me. I didn’t want to be downgraded to that. I was worth so much more than that, I thought. I lived and accomplished every dream I ever had.At the expense of my children.And each and every outside job I ever had screwed me over, because I was constantly placed in the position of choosing b/t my job or myself and my children. Hence the 40 jobs. I’m not the only one that has learned this lesson. That has neglected their home, partnerships, friends, children, for the sake of a job and thinking they’re going somewhere in life, and then their children grow to resent them, and they gradually lose all their friends, and they lose their partner or have no chance at finding one, because the job controls their life, and they endure the death of a multitude of immediate family members that they can’t be there for less they risk losing their job. Don’t matter if it’s working for McDonalds or being a CEO of a company, they expect you to sign over your soul.If I had been a less prideful and selfish person caught up in everything I’d been raised to believe, I would have stayed at home with my children. I would have held them as much as possible. I would have been there for their every accomplishment. I would have praised and encouraged them to be the best they could be. I would have been there for every award they got. Instead of resenting my daughter for crawling up in my lap or resenting my son for all the attention he wanted, I would have held my daughter and played with my son without a 20 minute time limit. If I knew what I know now, I would have accepted being on Hud housing and being on the system if it meant me being there to see my children grow up. If I knew what I know now, I would have listened to the doctors. And taken the time I had to make the most memorable experiences with my children. Something that they’d at least be able to remember even if I wouldn’t/won’t remember myself.So why do working people believe staying at home is better than going to work? There’s nothing more humbling than recognizing that you missed out on the greatest parts of your life, and neglected all those extraordinary pieces, for a boss that never gave a shit about your life, your home, your family, your situation, and only ever cared about you doing as you were told and being available and on call for every moment that they needed you. Their gain was money. Your sacrifice was partnership and family. But they wouldn’t blink an eye when it came to cutting your hours or firing you if someone else came along with more flexibility and availability and accepted lower wages. You’re easily replaceable. Family is not.You can never make up for all the lost years spent catering to a boss with promises never kept.Nothing I ever did was worth the years I lost with my own children.I only hope I can help and inspire others from making the same mistakes.

If this is in the USA and are an employer of over 50 people, you have a friend in the FMLA.For many, the FMLA is a four letter word. It is a glorious pain in the ass, and in its myriad provisions is the solution to your problem. When an employee has a pattern of absences that hint at a condition that could be FMLA qualifying, the employer has some obligation to make sure the employee is aware of that eligibility. Best case the employee takes the bait. That gets you a certification of qualifying medical condition, a prognosis of its potential duration and any limitations that may be present. At some point, you get to ask for a note from the doc saying your employee is fit to return to his or her duties. And, you may be able to ask for one every time they’re out. That means the malingering employee now has to pony up for a medical appointment, and a note to get back to work, the expense alone may curtail the absences or move the employee to magically feel better. Best case, they quit and move on to the next employer who is less officious.If you have employees that truly do suffer from debilitating illness that legitimately do pop-up periodically, it can be a positive to help them deal with it. Once had a lady that had asthma. Her condition wasn’t great and she had numerous absences, but she was a good employee otherwise. She had some financial issues that prevented her from dealing well with her condition so the company ( a large healthcare company) provided her a doc at no cost (on a very limited basis) and some help with the cost of her meds (that came out of my pocket, the first time anyway) and I hounded her (nicely) to see that she maintained the course of treatment. She wasn’t shy about telling other employees what we were doing, so it boosted the image a bit, at least locally. It also got her to work, her improved attendance paid off and she got larger increases and at least one promotion while I was still with the company. You can turn average to below average employees into great ones, you just have to be willing to follow through on creative thinking.