What is the FMLA and what does it mean for the military spouse?

What you don’t know can hurt you.  No, that is way too alarmist.  How about what you do know can help you!  To add one more acronym to your ever expanding vocabulary, KC-130, DFAS, VT-2, and now FMLA.  The Family and Medical Leave Act was first passed in 1993 to help employees who were ill or who had an ill family member.  In 2012 the Act was amended to include two entitlements to benefit military families.

There are very specific rules to even qualify for FMLA.  First, the employer has to be covered. Public agencies and all schools, regardless of the number of employees, are covered under the FMLA.  Private sector employers with 50 or more employees are covered, including joint-employer situations like employee leasing.

Next, the employee has to qualify for coverage.  You must work for a covered employer.  You must have worked for the employer for at least 12 months (not necessarily consecutively).  You must have at least 1,250 hours of service for the covered employer in the 12 months immediately preceding the leave.  And you must work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.  More simply put, if you work for a big enough company, have been there at least a year, and work at least 25 hours a week on average, you will likely be eligible for FMLA.

If you and your employer are covered under the FMLA rules, you may be eligible to take up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12 month period for one or more of the following reasons:  birth of a child or placement of a child with the employee for adoption or foster care; to care for a spouse, child or parent who has a serious health condition; for your own serious health condition.  And the new provision adds:  for any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that a spouse, child or parent is a military member on covered active duty or call to covered active duty status.

Qualifying exi-what?  It means, a thing.  A situation, a circumstance.  OK for real, an exigency is that which is required in a particular situation, typically needing immediate attention.  The leave is there for military spouses or family members to address common issues that arise when a service member gets deployed.  Some examples are appointments for making financial and legal arrangements, military sponsored functions, and arranging for alternative childcare. 

Military Caregiver Leave is another new provision and it is longer.  You still have to be eligible (50 employees, at least 1 year and at least 1250 hours) but Military Caregiver Leave allows employees who are the spouse, child or parent of a covered service member to take up to 26 weeks of leave in a 12 month period to care for the service member who is undergoing medical treatment, recuperation or therapy etc. for a serious injury or illness incurred or aggravated in the line of duty.  This provision applies to the families of members of both the active duty and reserve components of the Armed Forces. 

There are a couple of important things to note about FMLA.  The 12 weeks (or 26 weeks) of leave does not have to be taken all at once.  It can be taken intermittently.  So if your pre-deployment appointments are spread over many days, weeks or months, you can take the leave when you need it.  Same thing for caring for yourself or a sick family member, it doesn’t have to be taken all at the same time. 

Perhaps even an even more important fact, FMLA has nothing to do with pay, it is only a job holder.  12 weeks of leave, doesn’t mean 12 weeks of getting paid!  It just means that the employee must be restored to his or her original job or to an equivalent job with equivalent pay, benefits and other terms of employment.  Your employer may require you to use your accrued paid leave to run concurrently (at the same time) as your FMLA leave.  So you may get paid for part of it depending on how much vacation and sick time you have available.  Your employer is also required to maintain your benefits as if you were still there. 

So now that you have the basic facts, if you wish to use FMLA, go talk to your Human Resources Department for specifics about how your organization handles this type of leave.  There are also fact sheets available on the US Department of Labor website.  They can be found here http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.pdf and here http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/MilitaryFLProvisions.htm.

Birds of a Feather – Professional Associations

Everyone likes to connect with people that have similar interests and abilities, not just for fun, but work too.  There are professional societies, associations and groups for almost every occupation, job, business and pastime.  Make sure you know how to make the best use of them.

Joining the Flock - Getting Jobs

If you were trying to replace yourself in your current job, where would you turn for candidates?  I would turn to my colleagues in my profession.  Conversely if I am looking for a job, that is where my search would begin, even if I don’t yet know those colleagues.  Professional groups make it easy to seek out those people who can help you.  Go to the local association meetings.  Even if you don’t know which association or group you should be looking for, you can start with something generic like a Rotary Club or a Chamber of Commerce meeting.  Most people there will either know where you should turn next, or they know someone who will know.  Aside from the face to face meetings and getting to know the other professionals in your city, there is typically a place to find targeted job postings.  There may also be a place to post your resume so members of the group can look you up when they have an opening available.  If the group doesn’t have a job board or resume bank then don’t be shy about handing out your resume at a meeting.  (Make sure it is on one page!)

Feathering that Nest - Keeping Jobs

Once you are in gainfully employed, you probably want to stay that way!  Keeping up to date with the latest and greatest in your profession is absolutely vital to your success.  Whether it is interior design or human resources you need to remain informed about the latest trends, practices or laws.  Professional associations and societies typically publish a newsletter, magazine, blog or website (or all of those things).  Discussion about the practical applications of those changes and how they will affect business is a valuable teaching tool.  Pay attention and participate in those discussions because there is always something to learn from your colleagues.  HR and benefits is constantly changing landscape of legislation and legal decisions.  I would not be doing a good job and protecting my company if I wasn’t getting updates and information from my professional society. 

The ‘V’ Formation - Giving Jobs

Back to the original question….if you are about to PCS and need to replace yourself, where would you look for someone just like you?  Perhaps there is a military spouse that has your set of skills.  Awesome!  Helping out one of our own would be fantastic!  But if that won’t work out, you need to find a person with similar expertise.  Hiring from within your organization may be an option, or perhaps you can poach from a competitor.  You are more likely to find someone you consider to be qualified through a professional association.  Now forget about YOUR area of expertise, let’s say you are an accountant and your firm has a need to hire a public relations specialist.  You and all of your accounting friends don’t know any PR people, but there is an organization for PR people that you can access.  Posting positions on the websites for both local and national associations is much less expensive than a posting in the paper, and most of your responses will be from qualified professionals.

It’s a Different Flock

Your personal life is full of military jargon, acronyms and regulations, and it is comfortable.  Our relationships with other military spouses are invaluable.  The lessons, advice and help that are passed from spouse to spouse are part of what make our community so special.  Your professional networks allow you to step away from all of that, and will allow you to stretch yourself and move outside the cocoon of military life in which we sometimes live.  It lets you be around some other people for a while.  (Other people who don’t automatically ask you what your husband flies!)  I feel strongly that my profession gave me the ability to grow as a person separately from my husband and the military.  It made me more of who I am and a much happier person than I was as a trailing spouse.

A Whole Different Animal – Personal Networking

You have a past….. we all do.  Use it!  Recently I was talking to one of my college friends about her business and the subject of administering a 401(k) came up.  I was able to learn a little more about my profession from a different point of view.  With the availability of social media it is easier than ever to be in touch with all of those old friends and acquaintances.  You may find that your best friend from seventh grade is in the same profession as you and lives in the city where you are about to move.  Even if you stole her boyfriend in the eighth grade, I bet she has forgiven you and she can help you out with an introduction at the next association meeting.  Or maybe that friend is in a different profession, but she knows someone who would be able to assist you.  Would you be happy to pass a name or a resume along?  Surely someone would be happy to do it for you.

Originally published for the National Military Spouse Network (NMSN)

The Affordable Care Act: The Effect on Small Business

OK, my previous post was dashed off in a moment of anger after getting our health insurance renewals.  I was able to calm down and clean it up a bit, OK a lot.  This was first published January 5, 2014 on the NACTT Academy Newsletter website in a more professional, less sassy manner.

The Affordable Care Act: The Effect on Small Business

Is it really affordable?

In my experience, not so much. We recently received our medical insurance renewal information for our small group for 2014. We have (scratch that, HAD) a pretty rich plan. Not quite Cadillac, but the boss cares about his staff and wants to provide us with a good plan. Well, that plan design is no longer offered by the insurance company, so we don’t even have the opportunity to keep the status quo. As a result, our renewal percentage increase is kind of abstract because the plans don’t match up, but we can still compare the costs to last year. Yeah, those costs went up . . . A LOT!!!! The two plans that are somewhat comparable are both about 13% higher than the plan we had in 2013. There is a worse option for only a 3% increase. All of our options have a really bad change to the prescription plan. We can completely change insurance companies for less money, but that option offers fewer doctors in the network. The result is that as a small business, we now have pretty crappy choices. Taking the lesser of all the evils is not how one should decide on a health plan.


Where do these rates come from?
We are a small group, so we are 100% community rated. A mid-sized group is usually half community rated, half experience rated. Over approximately 200 employees, the group is usually experience rated. There has always been some age banding in determining the rates for insurance. Assuming a staff with 20 employees and they are all over age 50, the coverage would have always been more costly than a staff of 20 people in their 20s. However, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has taken the age factor to an extreme. There is a different cost for every year over age 20, up to age 65. Our oldest staff member is going to cost about $850 a month for single coverage. The youngest staff member will be about $290 a month. To add insult to injury, the price can change with a new hire. Up until 2014, the insurance companies took a snapshot at the time of renewal and that was the rate for the entire year. With ACA mandating different prices for different ages, if we replace a 30 year old data entry clerk with a 60 year old data entry clerk, the combined rate for everyone will go up mid-year.


So we should only hire young people in order to keep our rates down?
While I am sure that the administration of one Federal program did not have the intention of violating Federal age discrimination law, this seems to be the outcome. A side effect of Obamacare on small businesses is that it encourages discrimination against older workers. As said above, the difference in the single premium for the oldest and youngest employees is almost $500 a month. As a small business person, how can we not take this enormous difference into consideration when hiring? Of course, one is supposed to hire based on skills and ability to perform the essential functions of the job. I get it. But a premium difference of $500 a month is a lot for one employee. However, I strongly urge caution in making the mistake of a potentially discriminatory hiring decision.


Why so much change in cost?
There is uncertainty in the insurance industry as to how much the ACA changes are going to cost. No lifetime maximums, no pre-existing conditions clauses, and adding pediatric dental and vision evaluations will all add up to dollars that the insurance companies were not spending before and will have to spend now. That being said, the insurance companies will definitely be profiting . . . they always do. Those profits will come from businesses, like us, not individuals.


But doesn’t everyone have to pay into Obamacare?
Sure, on paper, everyone has to buy insurance. But in real life, it isn’t working out that way. The insurance companies, as well as the economic analysts who tried to build the ACA, hinge the financial success of the Act on healthy, young Americans buying health insurance. However, according to a poll just released by the Harvard University Institute of Politics, less than one-third of Millennials (ages 18-29) say they are likely to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges.


What else do you need to know?
Be sure to read your plan document thoroughly, especially the subrogation and indemnification clauses. At one time there was thought that insurance companies would want employers to indemnify them for not fulfilling ACA requirements. Our plan doesn’t have any of that language in it. Make sure yours doesn’t either.


If you are a solo practitioner, you can buy coverage on the exchange. You may see some insurance companies you have never heard of. Google them. It is likely that the unfamiliar company name is actually one of the big companies. They are simply using a d/b/a for the book of business that comes out of the exchanges. Provider networks for the various companies should also be on line, and will allow you to see if your doctor is in the new plan’s network.


Is this all going to work and be good for business and the employees?
I have discussed this question at length with colleagues and brokers. Unfortunately, we all agree that we have no idea. For all our combined experience and expertise, we can’t tell what is going to happen. What is certain is that more change will come. Tweaks will be made, whether under Obamacare or some other name. Also certain is that the insurance companies will make lots of money. The increase in premium and decrease in plan design benefits is allowing the insurance companies to pad their coffers for the unknown that looms for the next few years over the industry. Who knows, maybe it will all be affordable and next year we will get a premium decrease. HA HA HA!!! I crack myself up sometimes!