Health Centers - Know Your Families First Requirements!

Under the recently passed Families First Coronavirus Response Act, (FFCRA), businesses and non-profits with less than 500 employees have expanded requirements for paid sick leave and family leave under certain circumstances if the leave request is related to COVID-19.

However, the legislation specifically exempts “health care providers” from these new requirements! The U.S. Department of Labor recently issued guidance on this exemption, and is defining “health care providers” as: “anyone employed at any doctor’s office, hospital, health care center, clinic, post-secondary educational institution offering health care instruction, medical school, local health department or agency, nursing facility, retirement facility, nursing home, home health care provider . . .”.

Thus, health center staff are clearly exempt from these new requirements. So, if health center staff requests paid sick leave or family leave under this legislation, under DOL rules the HC would not have to comply.

Could the HC voluntarily comply? The answer would be yes, however, it would need to adopt this as a policy and apply it uniformly across its staff. However, please be aware that the HC may, or may not, then be able to receive the payroll tax credits offered under the legislation, since it complied with the paid leave voluntarily. As of this writing this is an open question, and it appears that the Dept. of the Treasury and IRS have not yet offered guidance on this topic. So, if a HC offers paid leave voluntarily it does so at some financial risk.

Don’t forget! If an organization employs 50 or more employees, it is still subject to regular FMLA and would need to consider requests for leave according to normal FMLA procedures.

 Always consult your employment attorney before making any decisions around this topic.