This is the second time I am on medical leave in the past 12 months. The last leave was for my heart surgery when I was out from November 2019 to January 2020. FMLA only provides 12 weeks of leave for a 12 month period. Since the transplant surgery was at the end of January, I qualified for another 12 weeks of medical leave. In fact, my company contracts a third-party company to managed leave administration. After sending in some paperwork, they approved my leave.
This year, our company made a change in the way we manage short-term disability. In the past, employees would need to apply for disability payments directly with the Employment Development Department (EDD). I had to do this last time and the process was very frustrating. The EDD website is terrible, and there is no way to reach a human for help. It took several weeks for me to get my disability application approved by EDD and to receive payment. This year, the third-party company does all the work, and I was just approved for $1,357 per week. The payment is 60-70% of your weekly pay, but maxes out at $1,357 starting in 2021. Our company also provides supplemental disability but the total amount (with state disability) is capped at $1,600 per week. That works out to an equivalent annual salary of $83,200. Working only 30-hours per week and receiving 75% salary did not have any impact on disability payment amounts.
Initially, I did not want to take medical leave since I thought I could “go back” to work within weeks since I am working from home. However, there are a lot of clinic visits and other appointments that it would be difficult to work full-time at the same time.
Life with chronic diseases 