Since this isn't driving her to a dr. appt. or physical therapy (something medical), I'm afraid to use it for this. Three months ago, we had to put Dad in a nursing home (Lewy Body Dementia) and start the whole Medicaid spend-down process. Our 1st lawyer we visited with had done NOTHING in 2 1/2 months, so the day Mom was discharged from the hospital from having her knee replaced and I checked her into the nursing home for physical rehab, my brother talked with another lawyer. She had about 10 days to work with and has been amazing with the advise she's given us. Last week, Mom was released from her physical rehab and is at home. She's doing good, but she can't drive yet. I've been approved for FMLA to care for her because of her knee, and we're taking turns with her daily care so no one's stuck doing it all (working good). Now, back to the Medicaid spend-down; they assigned a life insurance policy to a funeral home in lieu of cashing it out at 2/3 value and then loosing 1/2 of it towards Dad's spend-down. We thought that Mom would be able to go down in the future and make their arrangements, but the life insurance company wants the details ASAP. The funeral home is 90 miles one way away from Mom's house and this will end up being an all-day endeavor. Is this an FMLA eligible reason to take it? I work for a major cell phone provider that is like working with Satan (even though I'm a good employee that's been there several years, have taken a whopping 32 hours of FMLA over my entire employment time, and that's never been on discipline for anything and play by the rules). If this is something I shouldn't do, they WILL hire someone to follow me and see what I'm doing and where I go, and possibly discipline me, up to and including termination for benefit fraud. Any advise?
All FMLA does is make sure you still have a job when you return to work. Some companies have insurance on their employees, such as Aflac, where the company can pay you a small salary while you are out on FMLA.