Any employee planning a caregiver leave in Cocoon will be prompted to complete the FMLA Certification of Health Care Provider form (also known as the WH380F) or a Certification of Health Care Provider (applicable to employees in California only). Completion of this form is required before Cocoon can approve any leave entitlements that may be available to the employee.
Employee experience
During the employee leave submission flow, the employee will see a screen that requests them to ‘Download and complete their leave forms.’ This screen will also educate the employee on why they need to complete the leave form, and when they need to return the signed and completed form (15 days from their leave submission date).
For employees, taking a caregiver leave can be really overwhelming and frustrating when trying to figure out what paperwork is needed, who needs to sign what, when it’s due, and where to send it, all while taking on potentially unexpected caregiving duties. Cocoon works to address this in the leave submission process by highlighting everything an employee needs to know about the FMLA Certification of Health Care Provider form, which is required before anything else can be submitted for their leave.
In a single page, employees get the following information:
Why: these leave forms are required for leave to be job-protected
How: employees need to download the applicable forms that Cocoon surfaces and have their family member’s medical provider complete them. After completion, they upload the forms to their Cocoon dashboard in the ‘Documents’ tab.
When: they have 15 days from their leave submission date to complete and upload the forms
After completing the leave submission flow, their Cocoon dashboard will reflect that their leave is not yet approved and they must work with their family member’s medical provider to complete and return to forms. The health care provider providing medical certification should be the provider treating the family member for the condition creating the employee’s need for caregiver leave.
Once the employee returns their forms, Cocoon will review the form for completeness prior to approving the leave and granting any leave entitlements. Under FMLA, an employer does have the right to complete a sufficiency review, however, this will not be performed by Cocoon.
What happens if an employee misses the 15 day deadline?
If the employee has not returned their required forms within the required 15 days, on the 16th date post leave submission, Cocoon will send the employee an email notification informing them that they have a 5 day grace period to do so and, if they fail to do so, their leave will be denied. Workspace admins will be cc’ed on this email as well.
If the employee does not return their form within the grace period, on the 21st day, Cocoon will deny the leave and notify both the employee and the employer via email.
After a denial, there are a few options:
The employer can extend the employee’s deadline for returning the forms further (and communicate this to Cocoon via email),
The employer may waive the requirement for the employee to return the forms entirely and approve the leave without it (and communicate this to Cocoon via email), or
If the employer does not extend the deadline or waive the form requirement, the employee may request leave as an accommodation from the employer, and the employer would process that accommodation request.
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