cuppyb

Please read over your company's FMLA policy; there are Federal guidelines that each company has to follow for FMLA but the use of vacation, sick, and personal leave vary from company to company. Some companies can force you to use all or 50% of any earned time you have on the books, while some companies do not require that you use any of your banked earned time. FMLA is an upaid medical leave to care for yourself, spouse, parent, or child. The option to receive pay is a company policy, and the Short Term Disability pay is also a company benefit (which any company with over 50 employees will have as an option, just a matter of it is a free benefit or a benefit you needed to elect to enroll in by weekly payment). Also, depending on how your doctor's office completes your FMLA forms will decide if you are approved for FMLA or not. WLS is not an automatic approval for FMLA; you must have a medically necessary reason for having the surgery and being out......if you get someone in HR who feels it is an elective surgery your going out for (example - plastic surgery) then they can deny your request or grant you only part of the time as FMLA. There are also guidelines we follow regarding the time that is alloted, FMLA is not an automatic 12 weeks of leave. Unfortunately, I get people in my office everyday asking why they don't automatically get 12 weeks if FMLA allows that (some states give 13 weeks because the state law allows 1 more week than federal law). The policy is up to 12 weeks in a 12 month period (your company may go by rolling 12 months or calendar year). Each case is reviewed individually and depending on what the doctor writes and the medical reason, that is how the approval for time off is granted. We will not accept paperwork with a nurses signature, it must have a doctor's signature or stamp on it. Again this varies by company. Best of luck, and sorry for the long e-mail. It's just that I have had to deny some employees original request for FMLA for WLS and skin removal due to the information provided on the FMLA forms did not meet the requirement. If employees are picking up their forms from me, I let them know in advance what the doctor needs to put on there to get approval or I call their doctor's office and tell them I am faxing the forms back over and can they add in whatever information is needed.

Gonna try this again, hopefully with smaller photos. Here are pictures taken of me in Washington DC, before & after surgery. <O:p

Hello You can use FMLA and STD (Short term disability) together; actually they have to run concurrently. The FMLA is a protection for you that holds your position for 12 weeks, and the time taken off can not be held against you for disciplinary reasons. FMLA is unpaid, but WLS is covered by most STD policies and you can receive partial pay while you are out. My company does a 60% pay for STD, the first 3 days are not covered but if you have sick, vacation, or personal time you can use that during this time. Then the rest they picked up for me. I took 2 weeks out of work when I got banded, and then 3 days when I had my port moved. Feel free to e-mail me directly with questions about FMLA, I work in HR and this is what I do most of my day :sick

I was 340 lbs on Memorial Day 2006, and I am happy to say that I am 215 lbs today

Hello I had mine at Roger Williams in Providence, RI but my best friend had RNY at Tufts and she highly recommends them. I forgot the name of her surgeon but I know she had a female doctor. I chose RI over Boston because it was 15 minutes from home and easier to do my fills down here than to go 1 1/2 hours in town. good luck

I had mine done at Roger Williams Hospital in Providence, RI with Dr. Dieter Pohl

Health was my priority. But now that I am dropping - I am starting to care more about how I look and what I wear. It's nice getting the comments from co-workers saying I look good.