Once your medical leave plan is submitted, there are certain leave forms that require your medical provider's certification to ensure your leave can be approved for job protections and/or leave pay. For your medical leave to be approved, the Serious Health Condition (SHC) form must be competed within 15 days of your leave submission.
Once you submit your plan, you will be directed to download the leave form packet that includes all of the necessary forms that apply to your leave plan.
These may include:
Short Term Disability claim forms
Serious Health Condition form required for FMLA-protected leaves
Serious Health Condition form required for your specific state
Cocoon will autofill your leave forms wherever we're able to, but you are responsible for ensuring all relevant fields are accurate and complete.
Once downloaded and completed, your medical provider will then need to certify your disability and leave dates on each form. For any questions around which fields your provider needs to complete, please see this article.
What are these forms and why are they necessary?
Your request to go on medical leave must be approved under your employer’s leave policy and leave laws like the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. To apply for approval, you must ensure that your medical provider completes all the fields highlighted in yellow on the leave forms. You can download these leave forms here.
Until these forms are submitted back to Cocoon, you can start your leave, but it may not be job protected.
Who can complete these forms and provide the medical certification?
The person providing medical certification should be the specific healthcare professional that you've been seeing about your medical condition.
When are these forms due?
The SHC form must be completed within 15 days of submission of your leave plan and claims forms must be submitted within 30 days of your leave starting. If you do not believe you will be able to complete these forms within the allotted 15 days, please reach out to your HR team to request additional time to complete the forms.
What happens if these forms are not completed and returned?
If these forms are not returned, your leave will be denied, which may have implications for your employment status and company benefits.
Why can't Cocoon coordinate completion of these forms for me?
Cocoon has found that medical providers are much more responsive, as well as more willing to work directly with their patients to coordinate leave form completion than they are with third parties such as Cocoon. Additionally, medical providers have very strict policies as to whom and how they release private medical information, which may cause delays. As the patient you are best positioned to obtain the complete certifications on the quickest timeline.
Without your provider's certification, your claim is not considered complete. In an effort to avoid unnecessary delays in your claim filings and ensure you are paid properly, we encourage you to coordinate the medical certification process with your provider as quickly as possible.
What happens if my leave is denied?
You can explore your options after a leave denial here.
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