If Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) administration is a frustration for you or your team, you’re not alone. Forty-one percent of HR leaders in our recent survey cited FMLA compliance as their top challenge.
A key part of this challenge is the certification process, including filling out the FMLA Certification of Health Care Provider forms (WH-380-E and WH-380-F). Certifications allow HR to verify that an employee is taking leave because of their serious health condition or to care for a covered family member with a serious health condition.
This process is an important step in FMLA management, as it allows HR to confirm the details of an employee’s request for leave. It must be done compliantly and efficiently to keep the FMLA process moving. But, contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t require a medical provider to review one effectively or compliantly.
In this article, we’ll show you how to manage and review FMLA certifications in a way that fulfills legal requirements, preserves your team’s bandwidth, and honors employees going through difficult times, all without outside medical expertise.
For more information about FMLA eligibility, see our Comprehensive HR Guide to FMLA Compliance.
What is FMLA Medical Certification?
When an employee takes FMLA because of their own serious health condition or that of a family member, employers are allowed to require that employee to get a medical certification from a health care provider. Employees send the US Department of Labor’s WH-380-E or WH-380-F to a medical provider to complete.
The certification includes the following information:
- Contact information: The name, address, telephone number, and fax number of the health care provider, alongside the type of medical practice or specialization.
- Dates: The approximate date on which the serious health condition began, and its likely duration.
- Medical facts: A statement or description “of appropriate medical facts regarding the patient’s health condition.” These facts must support the need for leave. The details must also establish that the employee cannot perform the essential functions of their job or that a family member is in need of care. These facts must show why the employee needs intermittent leave or a reduced schedule, if the employee has asked for that.
The FMLA makes clear that there’s certain information that should not be collected for certification. This includes information about genetic tests, genetic services, or evidence of disease among the employee’s family members. The health care provider may provide a diagnosis, but it’s not a requirement.
The FMLA does not require employers to collect certifications. But it allows employers to do so if they choose. It’s important to note that employers may not require employees to provide certification to take leave for bonding with a newborn or a child placed for adoption or foster care.
Who Can Complete a Health Care Certification?
The FMLA is quite specific about the type of medical professional who can complete a certification. Here’s the list the DOL provides in one of its fact sheets:
- A doctor of medicine or osteopathy.
- A podiatrist, dentist, clinical psychologist, optometrist, or chiropractor.
- A nurse practitioner, nurse-midwife, clinical social worker, or physician assistant.
- A Christian Science practitioner listed with the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.
- Any health care provider from whom the employer or the employer’s group health plan’s benefits manager will accept a medical certification to substantiate a claim for benefits.
The Three Primary Certification Forms
When an employer asks an employee to verify their need for FMLA leave, there are three forms that can come into play:
- Employee’s serious health condition, form WH-380-E: This form is used when an employee is requesting FMLA leave due to their own serious health condition.
- Family member’s condition, form WH-380-F: This form can be used when an employee requests leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition.
- Military caregiver leave of a current servicemember, form WH-385: This form is used when an employee asks for FMLA leave to care for a family member who is a current service member with a serious injury or illness.
- Qualifying exigency, form WH-384: This form is used when the leave request arises out of the foreign deployment of the employee’s spouse, child, or parent.
- Caregiver leave of a veteran, form WH-385-V: This form is used when an employe requests leave to care for a family member is who a covered veteran with a serious injury or illness.
Employees can provide the required information contained on a certification form in any format, including on the letterhead of a healthcare provider or on official documentation issued by the military. If an employer uses its own forms, it may not require any additional information outside of what is specified in the FMLA.
It can be challenging to distinguish between these forms. AbsenceSoft makes FMLA form management much easier with the ACE Packet Generator, which sends the right form automatically.
Who Reviews FMLA Certifications?
When an employee turns in a FMLA Certification of Health Care Provider form or another certification form, HR will review it.
As an HR professional and leave manager, your role in reviewing medical certifications is meant to be administrative, not clinical. This means that you do not need to be a medical professional to review certifications. In fact, leave administrators can review forms without having any medical expertise.
The AbsenceSoft platform uses AI to assist with reviewing certifications for completeness. Our software maintains HR oversight, however, ensuring that all certifications receive a thorough review.
How to Perform an Effective Review
Here are four principles, based on DOL guidelines and successful employer practices, that will help you maintain compliance while creating an efficient review process.
Principle 1: Completeness Over Clinical Judgment
Remember, your role is administrative. You just need to check that the form is complete.
Here’s what a complete form looks like: all required fields have responses; a health care provider’s signature is present; details regarding dates, duration, and frequency are specified; the form addresses the specific leave type requested.
Best practices:
- Use the DOL’s forms as your standard.
- Review for blank fields or missing information.
- Check that the provider signed and dated the form.
- Verify that details regarding dates, duration, and frequency are specified.
Principle 2: Consistency Matters Most
Apply the same standards to every certification. If your organization is ever hit with a discrimination claim, the DOL will evaluate whether you have a pattern of compliance and courts will look for disparate treatment as evidence of bias.
Best practices:
- Use a standard checklist for every review.
- Document your review process the same way every time.
- Apply the same timeline expectations to all employees.
- Use automation to ensure consistent communications and eliminate unconscious bias.
Principle 3: Accept Complete Certifications at Face Value
Accept any form that a health care provider has filled out and certified.
Best practices:
- Remember that authentication is allowed but rarely necessary.
- You can contact the health care provider to verify they completed the form.
- You can also contact the provider to clarify illegible handwriting.
Principle 4: Escalate Only When Truly Necessary
Sometimes, you may need to escalate a certification. This should be the exception, not the norm. Most certifications are straightforward administrative reviews.
Best practices:
- Only involve legal: When you need an interpretation of a family relationship;
- When pattern concerns emerge that may require investigation;
- When an employee refuses to fix incompleteness after reasonable opportunity.
Critical Deadlines to Track
There are a few deadlines to keep in mind when managing FMLA certifications.
- Employer notice requirement — five business days post request: When an employee requests FMLA leave, employers must provide two things: an eligibility notice and a rights and responsibilities notice. Both of these notices are due within five business days of the employee’s request. Employees must provide notice of the certification requirement alongside the rights and responsibilities notice.
- Employee return deadline — 15 calendar days post notification: Employees have 15 calendar days to provide the requested certification to their employer. If an employee fails to meet this deadline, the employer can deny FMLA protections. (But all leave taken during the 15-day period is considered FMLA-protected leave.) When employees attempt to meet the deadline but don’t make it, they’re entitled to more time.
- Additional information deadline — seven calendar days: When an employee’s forms are incomplete or need additional information, they must provide the completed forms within seven calendar days.
The FMLA requires many steps, accompanied by many deadlines. When HR teams use a platform like AbsenceSoft, these deadlines are created with automated workflows and reminders that prevent missed deadlines and promote strong communication.
Simplify FMLA Certifications with AbsenceSoft
As an HR professional, you’re fully capable of reviewing FMLA certifications. You do not need to be a medical professional to ensure that forms are timely and complete.
What you may not be capable of is reviewing certifications at scale. More than 50% of employers reported an increase in leave requests in 2025. That means that HR teams are reviewing more certifications as more employees take leave. This influx makes automation a key technology. With AI, HR can review more certifications, with greater accuracy than ever.
See how AbsenceSoft streamlines FMLA certification review. Request a demo today.