Here’s the deal with Short Term and Long Term Disabilityfeatured

So……. I was going to make my first official blog post after my absence about how long it took for my tumor to show signs of shrinking.

But alas, another subject has struck a cord with me and I want to talk about it now while it is fresh in my mind.

I wanted to share some important information with you about Short Term and Long Term disability that I have learned the HARD way. 🙂

STD (no, not sexually transmitted diseases)

The process for short term disability is pretty straightforward. If you plan to be out sick for more than 5  days or so, you should contact the short term disability provider for your company.  In my case, this was a third party called the Reed Group.

Of course, you will need to fill out a long application and have your medical records reviewed by the provider, but it is quite straight forward.

Here are some important things about STD you should know:

• By law and for medical confidentiality and privacy reasons, you don’t have to tell your boss anything about going on STD! You are just supposed to call up the provider and start the process yourself.  THEY will inform your boss about you going on STD if it is approved. This seems a bit harsh to me, and I still informed my boss about what I was doing…..so everyone was in the loop.
• The application approval for your STD can take a while (one or a few weeks). You will likely need to take vacation days while you are waiting.  Just to give you an idea, I contacted my third party provider on January 17th to start the STD process, and I did not get a final approval in writing until February 12th. However, my approval was retroactive back to January 24th.  You need to clarify when you are applying for STD with the third party provider if you need to take vacation days or not.
• STD lasts for six months.  Some companies offer full payment of your salary for those six months depending on the benefit, while others do NOT. Based on my conversations with the staff at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America….most patients did NOT have their full salary under STD. I was considered lucky because I did.
• While on STD, you can usually make a work “accommodation” request if you feel ok and want to go back to work under certain restrictions (limited # hours, can’t perform certain tasks, work from home).
• The STD third party administrator overseeing your claim usually only approves you to be out for one or two month bursts.  It really does NOT matter what your doctors are writing on the request. My initial request from my doctor asked for me to be on STD from January 22nd until May 29th. However, I was only initially approved until April 22nd. I then had to have my STD dates extended four more times (April 23- June 3rd, June 4 – June 17, June 18 – July 1, July 2 – July 24) . Your doctors will be asked to then submit more notes and other documents (x-ray, CD scans, etc) to extend the time.
• According to what I was told, if I officially return to work full time at normal hours for at least 31 days, and I am not on LTD, I can submit another STD claim and have another six months of STD.  Of course, it needs to go through the entire review and approval process, but you will still be under STD.
• Your job or a comparable one is guaranteed while you are under STD.
• Oh, and you are not allowed to take vacation days to extend a STD leave that has run out. I was in a particular bind because my case manager was going to be out of the office the week my STD ended. I had emergency paperwork to get approved in ONE day, so I asked my company benefits management if I could take a few vacation days that week so I could ensure my paperwork would be approved. I was told the answer was NO. Bummer.

LTD

• Under Long Term Disability, you will be paid a small fraction of your salary (40% is the default usually, or if you elect additional insurance coverage you may get 60% or 70%)
• You may be asked to approach your employer for a work accommodation request (limited # hours, work from home, can’t perform some tasks) under LTD status by a certain date. Otherwise, if you don’t, your job is no longer secure. Your position can be filled with someone else or eliminated.  However, if you do work, you will be paid a fraction of your full salary.
• Moving into Long term disability automatically puts you in an inactive employee status. In which case, you need to return all of your company assets (computer, phone, credit card, badge, etc) to your management and your access to company networks will be shut off.
• You need to read your LTD benefit details carefully, as you maybe will lose the ability to accrue work time used for pension calculations, vesting, or other benefits.
• I was given a letter to say that if I didn’t return to some work arrangement under LTD, then when I was finally better and wanted to come back to work, I would need to look on the company website for open jobs and apply for one! YIKES. you would have to start all over again.
• I am really not sure how long my company would have paid my LTD 60% salary if I did not return to work. That is the true measure of the LTD benefit. My guess…..not long at all.

Everyone I talked to told me to avoid going into LTD.

I came very close to going that route, but got a rude wake up call when I got a letter from the STD provider explaining exactly what would happen. I NEVER thought I’d have to go back to work under LTD!!!!

Rather, I thought I would have a certain amount of time under a smaller salary to go through the treatment and recovery time I still needed.

Bottom line is LTD is really only a benefit if you are close to death or are severely disabled and you NEVER plan to go back to work ANYMORE.

If you have cancer and have a good prognosis, DON’T apply for LTD!

If I had to do it over again, I would have gone back to work after I recovered a bit from my radiation/chemo and was waiting to get surgery. I could have completed the needed 31 calendar days to resubmit a claim for STD.

Oh well, LIVE and LEARN, right?

Hope this insight helps someone.

XoXo

Suzie