The U.S. Department of Labor announced last week revisions and clarifications to the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act.
One of the new changes revises the Act’s initial definition of health care providers who are exempted from emergency paid leave. Now, the agency is excluding health care workers who are physicians and others who make medical diagnoses, as well as those who “provide diagnostic services, preventive services, treatment services, or other services that are integrated with and necessary to the provision of patient care.”
Under this new definition, nurses, nurse assistants and medical and laboratory technicians would continue to be considered health care providers as would those workers who provide services such as bathing, dressing, hand-feeding, taking vital signs, setting up medical equipment for procedures, and transporting patients and samples. These positions would remain excluded from the paid leave provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
Information technology professionals, building maintenance staff, human resources personnel, cooks, food service workers, records managers, consultants and billers, however, would no longer be considered health care providers and should now have access to the paid leave provisions under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
The change was made in response to a New York federal court’s decision vacating some of the provisions of the earlier version of the rule, which took effect on April 1. The new rule is scheduled to take effect on September 16.
Read more about the changes in Bloomberg Law here.
Access the full, unpublished rule here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-20351.pdf.