Work Comp and documenting and accounting for FMLA leave. Lora is your office manager and has been with the company for twelve years. Your company employs 72 people both full-time and part-time (50 full-time and 22 part-time). Lora was in a car accident last year and suffered a serious back injury. The car accident was not sustained during work hours or performing any work duties. Lora has chronic back pain due to the accident and starts missing work due to flare-ups. Last week, she was having balance issues and fell as she was coming down a set of stairs at home. She injured her leg in the fall. The fall also caused her back-pain to flare up again. Shes an eligible employee under the FMLA, so you provide her the proper FMLA notices and a medical certification form so you can determine whether the time off qualifies for FMLA leave. She returns the medical certification on time. The main concern addressed by the doctor was the back pain she was experiencing. When reviewing the form, you see that under Frequency the doctor wrote unknown, and under Duration the doctor wrote indefinite.

HR Considerations

Should you designate her absences as FMLA? Would she also be eligible for Workers compensation? Why or why not and for what?

Based on the limited information that was provided on the forms you gave Lora, can you request more information?

How should the request for additional information be handled?

Can you verify other details provided and if so which details?