When planning your parental leave, pre-birth disability is any time taken ahead of your little one’s birthdate. This time must be certified by your medical provider as medically recommended time off. Please talk to your doctor about the pre-birth time that you plan on taking before your leave begins.
Do I need to provide a doctor’s note to take pre-birth disability?
When you submit your leave, you'll be prompted through any and all leave forms that are required for your plan. Most commonly, this will include claim filings for any short term disability claims that are applicable to your leave. We'll guide you through the completion of these forms, but one of the most important parts will be your medical provider's certification of your leave dates.
Depending on your situation, you may or may not need to provide a specific doctor’s note or certification for your pre-birth disability time:
If you plan to take up to four weeks of pre-birth disability: On each short term disability claim, there will be a section requiring your medical provider to certify your disability, when they're recommending you stop working, and when they clear you to return to work. This is where your provider confirms their "approval" or certification of the pre-birth disability time. As such, there is no need to provide a separate doctor's note for this time.
If you plan to take more than four weeks of pre-birth disability: Cocoon considers four weeks the “presumed period” of pre-birth disability, in line with many insurance carrier policies and state leave laws like California PDL. If you need extended pre-birth disability, i.e. anything beyond four weeks, Cocoon will prompt you to complete and upload a Serious Health Condition form. We’ll automatically share your extended disability request with your employer so they can review the information and approve or deny your request within Cocoon.
If I need extended pre-birth disability leave, what does my doctor need to do to provide certification? Do they need to provide specific medical reason(s) for me to take pre-birth time?
Your medical provider won’t need to certify any specific reasons around why they are recommending pre-birth disability (unless relevant or if they're recommending an extended period of pre-birth disability). However, they’ll need to certify that it is their professional medical recommendation, and that your pregnancy precludes you from being able to perform your job during that time.
What this means for claim filing is that your provider certifies your start of pre-birth disability as your first day unable to work due to disability, rather than your child’s birthdate. This date is up to their discretion as your medical provider based upon how your pregnancy might progress.
Make sure to discuss your leave dates with your provider so you don't run into the possibility of those days being denied. This provides reassurance that when the time comes, everything is set up for success and as seamless an experience as possible.
If your pre-birth disability is not certified by your provider, you may not receive pay from your employer or from any benefit entities during that time.
How do I turn on pre-birth disability?
When logged into your Cocoon dashboard, you can make adjustments to your leave plan by hitting "Edit plan".
From there, you'll be able to toggle pre-birth disability on or off and adjust your dates to reflect the time you intend to take.
What happens if my baby comes early?
We know that expected due dates are incredibly subject to change. Ensuring your leave plan stays up to date with any changes to your leave dates allows the Cocoon dashboard to serve as a source of truth for your leave time and pay.
If your little one arrives earlier than expected, this will simply reduce the number of pre-birth disability days you’re taking and pull the rest of your leave plan forward.
For example, say your leave dates were originally as follows:
First day of leave: 12/05
Expected due date: 1/02
Pre-birth disability: 12/5 - 1/01
Post-birth disability: 01/02- 02/12
Bonding: 02/13 - 05/06
If your little one ends up arriving a few days earlier than anticipated, this change might be reflected in the following way:
First day of leave: 12/05
Child’s birthdate: 12/20
Pre-birth disability: 12/05-12/19
Post-birth disability: 12/20-01/30
Bonding: 01/31-04/23
What happens if my baby comes late?
Similarly to how if your little one arrives early, your baby arriving later than anticipated will simply extend the amount of pre-birth disability days you are taking and push the post-birth and bonding portion further out.
This is a good example of why it can be incredibly helpful to determine your start date of pre-birth disability (aka your start date of leave) with your medical provider ahead of time. As long as your provider is willing to provide medical certification confirming they recommended you go out on leave on that first day of pre-birth disability, any state or private insurance claims will include the full length of your pre-birth disability as part of your short term disability claim.
For example, say your expected due date was 8/11 and you were planning on taking 8/1 - 8/10 as pre-birth disability, but your little one ends up making their arrival on 8/15. This would simply extend your pre-birth disability dates to be 8/1 - 8/14.
Depending on length of your combined pre- and post-birth disability periods, you may need to seek a transition from short-term to long-term disability coverage, if you are covered by a private disability insurance provider.
Will I be paid during my pre-birth disability?
Pay during pre-birth disability will vary based upon your employer’s parental leave policy, your state, as well as whether or not you have opted into a Short Term Disability coverage plan through your employer. Depending on your leave plan and your employer’s policies, you may receive funds from all or none of these sources.
To determine if you’ll be receiving pay during your short term disability section of leave, you can hover over this section on your leave timeline in your dashboard.
Some of my pre-birth disability is showing as state and/or insurance pay, but some of it is showing as No pay or Employer only. Why isn’t insurance and the state providing pay during my entire pre-birth disability period?
When a short term disability claim is filed with a benefit entity, your claim period is subject to an unpaid waiting period or elimination period.
Most commonly, the waiting period is 7 days, which means that the first 7 days of a disability related leave (pre- or post-birth disability) will be unpaid by the state and/or the private insurance carrier.
If your employer is providing pay coverage during this portion of your leave, they will provide 100% of your pay during that period. If they do not provide pay coverage, the waiting period would be unpaid.
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