Digital Signature Licitness for Pregnancy Leave Policy in United States

How to eSign a document: digital signature licitness for Pregnancy Leave Policy in United States

ugh so many things i'm not gonna be able to memorize this i'm gonna have to read off my computer it's so confusing hey y'all i'm dr marta perez welcome back to my channel where we discuss pregnancy birth and postpartum today we're gonna talk about kind of a slightly different thing we're gonna talk about parental leave policies and how confusing they are don't forget to hit subscribe so that you never miss a video [Music] the reason i wanted to make this episode is because i get so many of my patients coming to me with paperwork and questions about when can i take off work what paperwork needs to be done what are my rights during this postpartum period about spending time with my baby so we are going to cover some of that in this episode just a quick note i'm going to use the term parental leave and mostly what i'm talking about is maternity leave or leave for a woman who has given birth to a child but i really feel passionate about using the terms parental leave so that we can advocate for more than just time off for someone who birthed a child what we want is time off for families that can be taken by either partner or together and we want leave that also includes adoption and other ways of building a family when you're welcoming a child into your life so i'm going to use the term parental leave here's the thing that's hard for both me and is hard for you when i'm talking about parental leave policies there are tons and tons of differences in different states as well as in different workplaces i can't possibly cover everyone's situation they are literally all unique depending on where you live but i'm going to go over at least some of the really big points that are universal to american people so that you feel more prepared to go to your own human resources and your own workplace with background information about what some of the possibilities are the first really important point is the united states has no parental leave policy that's right it's one of the only nations among a lot of nations that we consider our cohort that does not have any paid parental leave policy look at all of these countries in this graphic that have parental leave policies for their citizens this graphic is from the pew reach research center into december of 2019 but it's even not super accurate i see canada and the uk have less than about 20 weeks on there and i know that that's not true many people in the uk and canada have up to like 9 or 12 months full salary replacement may not be and is probably unlikely to be what each of these countries have but they all have some form of paid family leave and some of these places have leave for both members of a partnership and not just the person who gave birth or the mother in an adoptive situation this is a major glaring problem for american women and american families and it's not good for employers either so what then do american families do what do we do have fmla is the family medical leave act fmla gives some employees 12 weeks of job protected unpaid time per year fmla can be used for any personal medical or surgical experience in recovery including childbirth or it can be used to care for a family member or it can be used for adoption as well as far as the some employees there are certain criteria you have to meet to qualify for fmla and i have resources down in my show notes where you can learn more about fmla and whether you qualify for it but it only applies to companies that have more than 50 employees in a 75 mile radius you have to put in a year of work or a certain number of hours of work as an employee within the last year for the company so this really doesn't apply to many part-time or contracted employees meaning not salaried benefited employees if you want to take time off during your pregnancy then this can count towards your 12 weeks total so this fmla is unpaid it just protects your job and says you won't be fired while you're out and you can come back to your job but you will not receive compensation during the time you're out of fmla as far as paperwork for fmla you don't have to meet any certain criteria to have fmla you can take it because you're taking care of someone else it doesn't have to even be a personal medical experience or childbirth so you talk to your human resources you do have to do paperwork but they don't always involve having like your doctor's office or anything fill out paperwork for you so this is the only type of federally mandated protection that families get in regards and can use in regards to parental leave in the united states and another zinger is it doesn't really apply to everyone like if you haven't been at your job for a full year or you don't meet the hours criteria or you're not that kind of employee or employer another zinger that gets people is if you and your partner work for the same company if you're taking time off for the same event i.e the birth of a child then your fmla is per your family you don't each get 12 weeks you have to share the 12 weeks all right so there are other things that might affect what you might have and for as far as time off after childbirth first of all if you live in some states there are some states that now have some paid family leave policies i can't get into all the specifics of these states and how their policies work with federal policies but definitely talk to your employer if you live in one of those states there are also some cities or municipalities that might have specific programs as well there are some policies that might be unique to your employer so your employer might offer short-term disability short-term disability is a program through an insurance company or a disability company where either the company pays for or helps pay for or gives you the opportunity to pay for a policy for short-term disability short-term disability applies to any reason that a person may be out of work due to not being capable of working medically or due to illness or surgery so many people take short-term disability after the experience of childbirth so short-term disability is your employer may offer it as a part of your benefits but it's actually through a different company and because it's through a company they the company not your employer the company is allowed to say what qualifies a short-term disability and what does not the income protection through short-term disability is a percentage sometimes it's 50 75 100 et cetera and there's usually a time limit so these are the type of policies that say six weeks for vaginal delivery and eight weeks for c-section which is very common and you can only get more time than that if you have specific complications not even every type of complication specific types of complications that they cover so this kind of paperwork usually is filled out by the ob gyn office usually not the doctor themselves usually office staff helps us fill these out and we tell them what to put on it and what qualifies et cetera but unfortunately what happens is i've had people say i don't want to go back to work can you give me more time on this and i like cannot lie on paperwork so it gets to be really frustrating for um patients and for doctors as well because believe me i wish i could write on that form like she needs three months paid off at least okay but we can't do that we actually have to it'll be fraud that's insurance fraud if we were to do that so these are the types of paperworks where it depends on what's going on with you it's usually fine to wait and get these filled out at the time that you give birth at the starting period but you definitely want to know what's in the policy and what the policy allows for so go to your human resources go to that policy company's website and figure that out first the other thing is that short-term disability is usually taken concurrently with fmla so it's not like you do your disability and then your 12-week starts it's usually like if your disability is for six weeks that's also fmla time all right the next thing is employer-specific benefits and leaves so although it's only a minority of companies in this country that offer paid family leave there are some companies that do and that's awesome the leaders in this field that i see are like the tech companies big accounting companies big consulting companies i really see them offering some really generous multiple month long paid leave policy for their employees that are no matter their gender so the no matter what partner it is even the non-birthing partner and for adoption etc and that is really wonderful and i would love to see that expand interestingly enough healthcare is not one of those industries most doctors and nurses i know get no paid maternity leave i'm really lucky i have 12 weeks paid and i'm like so grateful for that but we definitely don't see health systems and healthcare provider companies and many times small businesses be able to provide that also as of october 2020 if you're a federal employee you get 12 weeks of paid family leave time so that's great for federal employees the next thing is what a lot of people do is where they cobble together their vacation time their sick days or their paid time off into time that is technically paid but they're off now the problem with doing this is that if your leave falls at the beginning of a year and you've used all that time then when you or your child gets sick or need a break later in the year you may not have any paid time to be able to take and that's a real problem for the workforce and for families these lack of protections suck for everybody but they are particularly harmful for our most vulnerable families these families usually don't have access to paid sick time or qualify for even fmla so we're combining a time that is very hard physically and emotionally but should be a really joyous time for a family and making it a super difficult economic and stressful situation any time away from their job means lost income for their family i see a lot of postpartum moms that i take care of go back to work at two weeks because they simply cannot afford to feed their family and be off for more time with unpaid leave i want to read some statistics i found for you roughly two and five working parents with incomes below 200 of the federal poverty level have no paid leave of any kind no paid sick days no paid vacation days and no paid personal days to use after a new baby comes 76 of low-wage workers do not have a single day of paid sick leave the most basic employment benefit paid leave is a win-win situation paid leave is really beneficial for families and their health when people have paid leave it's associated with better vaccination rates for infants a lower infant mortality rate better bonding and satisfaction between families and providing paid family leave actually results in better retention of women into the workforce and it also contributes to lowering and equalizing the gender pay gap paid paternity leave actually leads to higher marriage satisfaction and a greater equal distribution of household tasks that is present for years after the actual arrival of that incident child and paid leave paid leave benefits employers because retaining their workers in the workforce contributes to less turnover and better stability in their workforce as you saw from the beginning of this presentation there are tons of very economically successful countries that have paid family leave without it being some sort of drag on their economy so really it is high time for america to institute paid family leave what can you do to try to make this experience of figuring out what your leave is and this experience less stressful because when i asked if you wanted me to do an episode on this so many of you sent me stories about how you didn't know and how this was so stressful that it was taking away from the joy of the end of pregnancy stressing about these leave policies the confusion being shocked to find out that you didn't have paid time that you thought you had or you didn't have as much as you thought you had and it totally thrown you for a loop so here's what i recommend first is that it's a normal part of the job interview process to sit down with someone at a human resources and for them to explain the benefits to you so health insurance is one of them but family leave and disability is another have them explain all of those things so that you understand how you can qualify for them and what they are again fmla means for most people they've been working at the company for 12 months before the leave starts or for a certain number of hours so you want to make sure that you qualify for that if that's a requirement at your job to qualify for fmla for your leave the other thing is that benefits are actually something that you can negotiate for when you're getting a new job so in many businesses just like you may be negotiating your pay or your vacation time think about adding something into a contract about parental leave or flexibility around child care the next thing is if you think that your workplace's policies are unfair be sure to contact your state's labor department and get clear on if they are unfair and that you're getting everything that you're entitled to don't wait until the end of pregnancy to figure this stuff out many of us do but it's really helpful to know even before pregnancy what these things are going to be and then find out early in pregnancy so that you can be empowered to know and not be shocked to find in the third trimester and stress about what your leave will be and how it didn't meet what that your expectations were and then finally please advocate that all americans get a paid family leave you can start at the local level a lot of those state a lot of states have already implemented this so start with your state legislator representatives for your governor of your state but also advocate on a national level with your national representatives and senators it's really important that they hear from both male and female members of a family how important paid family leave is it's beneficial for employers and it's beneficial for families and we really need it in america thank you so much for joining me for this episode i really hope you found it helpful again i have resources down on the show notes i'm so glad you're here please subscribe so that you catch my video every friday and i wish you a really great week take care you