Navigating FMLA: DOL’s Opinion Letter Clarifies Travel Time

From ASA partner SESCO (www.sescomgt.com), a full-service human resource and employee relations consulting firm, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division recently issued an opinion letter explaining an employee’s available leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) may be applied toward time spent traveling to and from a medical appointment.
 

The opinion letter also clarifies that there is no need for the healthcare provider to address how much time the employee will spend traveling to and from the appointment. The DOL provided examples of when leave is or is not covered:
 

• An eligible employee schedules their dialysis treatment at 4:00 p.m. The 30-minute travel time to the appointment, along with any time in treatment before the 5:00 p.m. scheduled end of their workday, is covered by the FMLA.

• An employee requests leave from work to accompany their child on a school field trip. The child has a serious health condition but does not need care during the field trip. The employee’s leave for the field trip would not be covered by the FMLA because the requested leave is unrelated to the child’s serious health condition.

• An eligible employee takes leave every Friday for two hours to go to physical therapy for their serious health condition. One Friday, the employee requests leave for three hours, including an extra hour to run personal errands after their physical therapy appointment. The two hours they need to travel to and from and to attend physical therapy is FMLA-protected. The additional hour to run errands not related to their serious health condition, however, is not FMLA-protected leave and would not count against their FMLA entitlement.