Family and Medical Leave: Law, Health Care, and Social Services

Course #91012 - $30 -

Overview

Family and medical leave law, including both federal and state instruments, constitutes one of a handful of areas in which law typically cannot operate in practice without the direct participation of healthcare practitioners, inclusive of medical and mental health clinicians. This course will review the clinical and social benefits of leave-taking, as well as options and information about the choices clinicians can make to support leave-taking where needed and to properly direct and refer clients who need more specific legal guidance than clinicians are in a position to provide.

Education Category: Management
Release Date: 08/01/2022
Expiration Date: 07/31/2025

Table of Contents

Audience

This course is designed for all physicians, physician assistants, nurses, social workers, counselors, and allied healthcare professionals with patients who require or would benefit from protected leaves of absence.

Accreditations & Approvals

In support of improving patient care, TRC Healthcare/NetCE is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team. NetCE has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6361. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. NetCE is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. As a Jointly Accredited Organization, NetCE is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved under this program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. NetCE is accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET). NetCE complies with the ANSI/IACET Standard, which is recognized internationally as a standard of excellence in instructional practices. As a result of this accreditation, NetCE is authorized to issue the IACET CEU.

Designations of Credit

This activity was planned by and for the healthcare team, and learners will receive 5 Interprofessional Continuing Education (IPCE) credit(s) for learning and change. NetCE designates this enduring material for a maximum of 5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. NetCE designates this continuing education activity for 5 ANCC contact hour(s). NetCE designates this continuing education activity for 5 hours for Alabama nurses. NetCE designates this continuing education activity for 2 NBCC clock hour(s). Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 5 MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit. Completion of this course constitutes permission to share the completion data with ACCME. Social workers participating in this intermediate to advanced course will receive 5 Clinical continuing education clock hours. Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME and/or Self-Assessment requirements of the American Board of Surgery's Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit. Through an agreement between the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, medical practitioners participating in the Royal College MOC Program may record completion of accredited activities registered under the ACCME's "CME in Support of MOC" program in Section 3 of the Royal College's MOC Program. AACN Synergy CERP Category B. NetCE is authorized by IACET to offer 0.5 CEU(s) for this program.

Individual State Nursing Approvals

In addition to states that accept ANCC, NetCE is approved as a provider of continuing education in nursing by: Alabama, Provider #ABNP0353, (valid through July 29,2025); Alabama, Provider #ABNP0353, (valid through July 29, 2025); Arkansas, Provider #50-2405; California, BRN Provider #CEP9784; California, LVN Provider #V10662; California, PT Provider #V10842; District of Columbia, Provider #50-2405; Florida, Provider #50-2405; Georgia, Provider #50-2405; Kentucky, Provider #7-0054 through 12/31/2025; South Carolina, Provider #50-2405; South Carolina, Provider #50-2405. West Virginia RN and APRN, Provider #50-2405.

Individual State Behavioral Health Approvals

In addition to states that accept ASWB, NetCE is approved as a provider of continuing education by the following state boards: Alabama State Board of Social Work Examiners, Provider #0515; Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy and Mental Health Counseling, CE Broker Provider #50-2405; Illinois Division of Professional Regulation for Social Workers, License #159.001094; Illinois Division of Professional Regulation for Licensed Professional and Clinical Counselors, License #197.000185; Illinois Division of Professional Regulation for Marriage and Family Therapists, License #168.000190;

Special Approvals

This activity is designed to comply with the requirements of California Assembly Bill 1195, Cultural and Linguistic Competency.

Course Objective

The purpose of this course is to provide healthcare professionals with the information necessary to guide patients and make clinical decisions regarding the needs for an extended leave from work.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

  1. Outline the types of leave available in the United States.
  2. Describe the impact of leave-taking on individual, family, and community health.
  3. Identify common obstacles to leave-taking.
  4. Discuss the legal rights of workers to take leave.
  5. Analyze the role of healthcare and social service providers in ensuring access to leave.

Faculty

Beth Ribet, PhD, JD, is the co-founder and co-director of Repair, a health and disability justice organization. Dr. Ribet obtained her doctorate in Social Relations (Sociology & Anthropology) from the University of California-Irvine, and her law degree at UCLA, with a specialization in Critical Race Studies. Her areas of expertise include disability and employment, disability civil rights, medical sociology, healthcare advocacy, and social psychology. Her particular research and teaching interests focus on the production of new disabilities and illnesses as a result of violence, exploitation, and inequity and strategies for using law and policy to address the concerns of people disabled or injured by inequity. Dr. Ribet speaks publicly and trains healthcare, legal, and social service practitioners regarding work with vulnerable populations, including but not limited to trafficked and exploited persons, refugees, incarcerated persons, and children and youth with disabilities.

Leslie Bunnage, PhD, is an associate professor of sociology and director of the Lewinson Center for the Study of Labor, Inequality & Social Justice at Seton Hall University. Her research falls within the two main areas of social movement mobilization and strategic formation and labor and inequalities. Her recent projects include an analysis of Internet communication technology as a basis for cohering social movement organization (SMO) messaging and strengthening collective identity (with Deana Rohlinger), and a qualitative study of dehistoricization and rhetoric in the U.S. Tea Party movement. Dr. Bunnage also examines labor movement revitalization and intersectional racial, gender, and socioeconomic barriers to leadership development in the AFL-CIO “Union Summer” youth training program. She is currently developing a socio-legal research agenda examining the impact of family and medical leave law and policy on the materialization of workers’ rights.

Lisa Concoff Kronbeck, JD, graduated from UCLA School of Law in June 2010 and was admitted to the California State Bar later that year. She also holds a master's degree in public policy from the UCLA School of Public Affairs, with a concentration in health and social policy. Following law school, Ms. Concoff Kronbeck worked for two years as a staff attorney in the public benefits unit at Disability Rights California, assisting clients primarily with benefits linked to disability, including Medi-Cal, Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, and In-Home Supportive Services. At present, she is caring for her tiniest client thus far: her young daughter who has Down syndrome.

Faculty Disclosure

Contributing faculty, Beth Ribet, PhD, JD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Contributing faculty, Leslie Bunnage, PhD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Contributing faculty, Lisa Concoff Kronbeck, JD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Division Planners

John M. Leonard, MD

Jane C. Norman, RN, MSN, CNE, PhD

Alice Yick Flanagan, PhD, MSW

Division Planners Disclosure

The division planners have disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

Director of Development and Academic Affairs

Sarah Campbell

Director Disclosure Statement

The Director of Development and Academic Affairs has disclosed no relevant financial relationship with any product manufacturer or service provider mentioned.

About the Sponsor

The purpose of NetCE is to provide challenging curricula to assist healthcare professionals to raise their levels of expertise while fulfilling their continuing education requirements, thereby improving the quality of healthcare.

Our contributing faculty members have taken care to ensure that the information and recommendations are accurate and compatible with the standards generally accepted at the time of publication. The publisher disclaims any liability, loss or damage incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents. Participants are cautioned about the potential risk of using limited knowledge when integrating new techniques into practice.

Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of NetCE not to accept commercial support. Furthermore, commercial interests are prohibited from distributing or providing access to this activity to learners.

Technical Requirements

Supported browsers for Windows include Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 and up, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Supported browsers for Macintosh include Safari, Mozilla Firefox 3.0 and up, Opera 9.0 and up, and Google Chrome. Other operating systems and browsers that include complete implementations of ECMAScript edition 3 and CSS 2.0 may work, but are not supported. Supported browsers must utilize the TLS encryption protocol v1.1 or v1.2 in order to connect to pages that require a secured HTTPS connection. TLS v1.0 is not supported.

Implicit Bias in Health Care

The role of implicit biases on healthcare outcomes has become a concern, as there is some evidence that implicit biases contribute to health disparities, professionals' attitudes toward and interactions with patients, quality of care, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. This may produce differences in help-seeking, diagnoses, and ultimately treatments and interventions. Implicit biases may also unwittingly produce professional behaviors, attitudes, and interactions that reduce patients' trust and comfort with their provider, leading to earlier termination of visits and/or reduced adherence and follow-up. Disadvantaged groups are marginalized in the healthcare system and vulnerable on multiple levels; health professionals' implicit biases can further exacerbate these existing disadvantages.

Interventions or strategies designed to reduce implicit bias may be categorized as change-based or control-based. Change-based interventions focus on reducing or changing cognitive associations underlying implicit biases. These interventions might include challenging stereotypes. Conversely, control-based interventions involve reducing the effects of the implicit bias on the individual's behaviors. These strategies include increasing awareness of biased thoughts and responses. The two types of interventions are not mutually exclusive and may be used synergistically.