Why You Should Discuss FMLA With Your Wound Care Patients

How many times have you started to treat a wound care patient who is financially stable and he comes and tells you he has lost his job? His wound has been present for years but now that he is improving due to your care, he has lost his job due to missing work for appointments he needed to treat these wounds.

I have recently started to address this sooner rather than later with patients.  We know the sooner we can get these patients healed, the less likely they will progress to hospitalization, amputations and limb loss, which leads to a permanent disability and ultimately loss of work and quality of life. 

Often, these patients will miss appointments with you, which only prolongs their care. One step forward, two steps back.

So what is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.

Eligible employees are entitled to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:1

• the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
• the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement;
• to care for the employee’s spouse, child or parent who has a serious health condition;
• a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job; or
• any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty.”

In regard to military caregiver leave under the FMLA, patients can also apply for 26 workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the service member’s spouse, son, daughter, parent or next of kin.1

To qualify for the FMLA, a worker must be employed by a business with 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius of his or her worksite, or a public agency, including schools and state, local and federal employers. The 50-employee threshold does not apply to public agency employees and local educational agencies. The worker also have worked for that employer for at least 12 months (not necessarily consecutive) and 1,250 hours within the last 12 months.

We should encourage our patients with chronic wounds to look early into their job benefits in anticipation of them possibly need to take days out of work in order to heal wounds.

Reference

1. United States Department of Labor. Family and Medical Leave Act. Available at https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla .