In Advisory Opinion FMLA2026-2 (“Advisory Opinion”), the Department of Labor (“DOL”) has said that employees may use leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) for time spent traveling to or from covered medical appointments.
Law. Under the FMLA, eligible employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for (among other things) a serious health condition that prevents the employee from performing his or her job. Similarly, the FMLA entitles an eligible employee to leave in order to care for certain family members with serious health conditions.
FMLA regulations permit an employer to require its employees to “support their requests for leave with a certification issued by a health care provider” and to request subsequent recertifications “on a reasonable basis.”
Advisory Opinion. The Advisory Opinion was written in response to an inquiry from an employer that has eligible employees who take planned intermittent FMLA leave to attend medical appointments related to their own serious health condition or the serious health condition of a qualifying family member. One employee requested intermittent leave to attend medical appointments and presented a medical certification in which the physician certified that the appointments would occur once per month for 45 minutes. Although this employee indicated that he needed one hour to travel to and from the doctor’s office, the medical certification did not address this travel time.
DOL responded that the FMLA defines a “serious health condition” to include not only the immediate limitations and effects of such a condition, but also “inpatient care” and “continuing treatment” of the condition by a health care provider. In defining “serious health condition” to incorporate immediate medical treatment, as well as ongoing care, the statute makes it clear that FMLA leave is appropriately used for time spent in medical appointments to diagnose, monitor, address, or treat an employee’s serious health condition. “Part and parcel of obtaining care and continuing treatment from a medical provider is the requirement for the employee to travel to the provider’s location.”
Similarly, the DOL noted that the FMLA entitles an eligible employee to leave in order to care for certain family members with serious health conditions. Caring for family members may include accompanying them to medical appointments. “For example, if the covered employee leaves his jobsite, drives to his mother’s house, picks her up and drives her to her appointment, and drives her home before returning to work, the amount of time he needs to travel, wait for his mother’s appointment to begin and end, and assist his mother when she returns home, is FMLA-protected leave.”
Finally, the DOL noted that, “A healthcare provider’s knowledge does not extend to the travel time necessary for a patient to get to and return from a needed appointment. Accordingly, a medical certification need not include any information regarding travel time to be complete and valid under the FMLA.”
The Advisory Opinion can be found at: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/opinion-letters/FMLA/FMLA2026-2.pdf