Doctor's Notes for Sick Use
 

Delta guy here trying to understand how other carriers do sick time verification. Do y'all's carriers require Dr. or QHCP notes if you use sick time under any circumstances? If so, when can they be required?

Thank you!

SWA…nope. You may get a “wellness check” phone call if you have consecutive sick calls…green on green we call it.

Sick verification form required at AA if you are out more than 14 consecutive days.

Lol "Yes my Dr is in Italy. I don't see a problem with that".

Wellness check calls from chiefs occasionally if you are egregiously abusing it at WN but they are no big deal imo. What can they do? I’ve never gotten one, even with a green on green call. SWA is a little different tho because this place functions on greed and extra hustle I think more so than other places. What other pilot groups consider running hot is normal here. High sick calls are costly but don’t affect reliability generally because of how many greedy high time hustlers we have.

f9 sec 14 which is sick. 14.d.4. Return to work.
“The company retains the right to request that a pilot who is absent due to illness or injury furnish the company with a physician’s certificate, describing the medical condition that resulted in the pilots absence. This request shall only be made when there is a reasonable basis to question the pilots absence.”
That turned into a practice argument where it’s never really questioned outside of a few different circumstances. Think patterns (every other Tues, every holiday, ect…)

f9 sec 13 which is leave of absence. Not to be confused with sec 14 sick has similar language but starts to force management to pay for medical expenses and time off if they want to question a physician note.
The intent is to prevent another German wings scenario when a pilots is returning from an issue where they have been out of communication with the company for a longer period of time. I believe most alpa carriers have similar language because it’s driven by insurance companies.

So D is requiring a note for every sick call?

If I get to the point where I need a doctors note I’ll be on STD or LTD.

Seems to be a little varied between the chief’s offices at WN. There’s an assistant in BNA who is apparently getting aggressive about sick calls but he can feel free to leave a message.

I feel the company is going to try and crack down on it (they are subtly doing things like removing the sick time display when we view someone’s schedule for example).

This isn’t legal in every state.

He’s an assistant??? Since when do ACPs send out base newsletters?

They can always ask but you don’t have to provide for sick. Part of the problem can become when pilots just start sending doc notes for the flu. Over time practice has the potential to become statue quo.
There is a difference legally when coming back from a medical leave of absence. Part of the reason that language is in separate sec of an agreement.

I was asked at one point for a doc note from the chief pilot to provide a doc note for a sick call. I responded to the email and said I never went to the doc. He responded back with ok thanks. I made sure I got paid for it then sent the correspondence to the union for archival.
Next time the plan if it happens will be my wife didn’t go to the doc to solidify that part of sick language.

JL seems to be dialed in to sick bank stuff according to more than one FO i recently flew with. Want to get some trading cards? Be ready to have your board checked and talked to about sick time LOL. Bait and switch!

Im telling you the trading cards are super popular with this generation of FOs—be careful getting lured into the office!

Based on what I’ve heard Im thinking the base newsletter is a team job—not solely the chief.

No. Sick use over 120 hours in prior 12 rolling months requires a note on a subsequent sick call (until you are less than 120 hours of ‘lookback’)

Separately, the company may inquire under a “good faith basis” and may require a note, but there are exemptions and they have to tell you the reason for the inqiry. Patterns or amount of sick are not valid reasons for GFB. The company pays for all medical bills if they GFB you.

It’s much more of a annoyance than anything.

I know in training it was mentioned more than once sick calls were going up.
It was countered with well when you displace 300 pilots etc
The guy giving the talk couldn't make that leap

Theres an arbitrator that upheld a termination with this defense so I would proceed with caution.

If it's in the CBA it's a little complicated. RLA will preempt state law on many topics.

The way it went with the case Im familiar with, company asked for a sick note after what they considered excessive use (4 times in a rolling 12 month period). The guy said in his state thats not a legal request, so they fired him for sick abuse.
Union grieved it, grievance obviously denied. Went to arbitration and arbitrator said that under RLA unless you can prove the company is wrong, their position is always correct, and with no sick notes he had nothing to counter. Arbitrator held the termination.

Someone was fired for 4 sick calls in a year?!? Hahaha, let’s just say that half of AA would be fired…

i suspect there’s way more to this story.

WTF airline is this??? I would have been fired a looooong time ago. These guys apparently have never had kids.

Some regionals, back in the day. I wouldn't want to be calling out much more than that on probation.

Fixed

(filler)

Interesting, sounds like the guy might have locked himself into that position by saying that in an email or recorded phone line? Either way once disciplinary action looks eminent better to just let the union take over and make an argument. You can sometimes handcuff reps with written statements and recorded phone calls.

Yeah this guy managed to **** off the company with his response before reps got involved.
He would have kept his job if he just went mea culpa, but he went full sovereign citizen on them and tried to be smarter than others.

Anyone from United or know what United does? Or Allegiant, UPS, Fedex, Jet Blue, or others?

Sounds about right. We had a guy call in sick 20 plus times on probation. In the disciplinary hearing with the union fighting for his job he told the chief pilot to F off. Then got ****ed at alpa for not saving his job. Unfreeking believable.

FIFY....filler

I would be surprised if there’s much variation as it’s mostly insurance driven. Your just not going to come to an agreement if the company has no way of cyaing for medical issues they could/should have known about. Hopefully others from those companies will chime in.

When I was at WN I got called by an Assistant Chief because Scheduling had reported that I had called out for 3 trips in a row, I informed him that the trips were all turns so I had only called out for 3 days.

I've seen that, where an airline counted sick occurrences by trips, or reserve days. A line holder could call out 4x annually and not even show up on the radar, while a reserve could get sick just once, trigger five or six occurrences in one week and then be in hot water.

Stupid Management Tricks.

Disregard.

At United off the top of my head it’s a rolling 12 month period. At 5 distinct instances of sick calls in 12 months you can get a call and/or email checking up on you advising further sick calls can get you put on attendance monitoring. Each sick call from there escalates to mandatory discussions. At 8
is when discipline including termination can happen. I haven’t gotten high enough to press to test, but I assume around 5 is when asking for doctors notes could be a factor. I don’t know if providing them is obligatory or not.

Interesting. So you get x4 freebie schedule adjustments annually. Cool.

I had 8 before I even heard anything…. And all I got was an automated style CCS message. Just asking if I was ok and if I needed any help call the CPO. And that was it.

how can termination happen unless you are a complete moron? The FAA is very clear that you cannot operate an aircraft if you are not fit to fly. So, unless you are lying, you can’t be terminated. Need a doctor’s note? Easy, I can message my doctor anytime and ask for all kinds of notes and he sends them within a day. Seems like anyone getting terminated doesn’t have a doctor they can call. Which is a whole other problem.

yes, I had a note from a doctor stating was tackling an autistic kid on the side of the road a few hours before I had to report. It was that easy. It was also true. Thanks to the police report and the report from the ambulance crew that took him to the children’s hospital. That was my 10th sick call in 4 months.

Oh, and he is my easy child. You should meet his older sister.

Had to be like Skywest or something.

Even in the bad old days at Republic it was eight "occurances" in a calendar year. I clearly remember guys keeping a notebook and incorporating it into their bidding plan. Notebook was because some would constantly ride 6 or 7 and had to keep track when they could call out again.

Now I'm at AA and the main rules are 1. don't bang out after they hit you up on short call. 2. DO NOT non rev or use KCM when on sick call.
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SWA contract specifically allows for non-rev travel both on and off line when sick.

Previous job in the dark decade;

We'd all been there long enough to have 3 weeks vacation with line bidding, so effectively, 17+ days off a month with a vacation "week". Sick call rules basically granted a pilot 2 four day trips without requiring a Dr's note. Do the math, every other month and one gets over half the month off with NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

Was funny, looking at the bid pack for sickation conflict, just like vacation conflict.

Nope, get sick at an outstation or commute, ya gotta get home somehow. Almost 3 decades of doing this, 20+ with CASS/15+ with KCM, NEVER heard a word about JS'ing/NR'ing to get home on a sick call.

Now, calling in sick, THEN NR'ing/JS'ing to a leisure/vacation is a TOTALLY different ball game, IF they check.

Sounds like AA sucks.......

American tried this in the late 90s. The pilots found out that if the company requested a note and you haven't already seen a doctor that they would be required to pay for the exam. This got around and started costing the company a lot of money so they discontinued asking for notes for every most sick calls. Remember if the company asks for a doctors note and you tell them it was a cold or allergies or anything a doctor really can't do anything about and it would be a waste of time going to the doctor remind them you will happily go get the full body scan at the Mayo clinic to make sure you can give them a proper doctors note as long as they are willing to foot the bill.

Rick, I’m very sure we were at the same place at the same time back in the day. It was 4 calls in a rolling 12 months, and then when I got to parole I was called in for being sick 20 days in a rolling 12 months. If I have the time I’m going to stay sick for all 6 days of reserve just to make sure I’m actually well. I asked if it was a written policy and the little meeting was over.

Suppose your beloved pet dies the morning of your trip, are you gonna be fit to fly and in the right frame of mind? Where do you get a doctor's note?

Suppose you get into a pretty big fight with your spouse, is your emotional state gonna be in compliance with IMSAFE and where do you get a doctor's note for that?

How many of you have cootie-bags at home that bring home all sorts of cooties from school or day care?

Ever have one of those nights where you get almost no sleep, do you just go and show up in the morning having maybe 2-3 hours of broken sleep because the AC went out or you had a massive thunderstorm over your house throughout the night that wouldn't let up and your pets were scared out of their minds?

The list goes on and on....

Now... this is completely different than say someone on reserve that only calls in sick after getting a trip. Once, OK... it happens. Twice in a row... uhhh...? Third time? Come on man... Sick calls due to any number of factors are one thing, established patterns are a different story.