To complete a CVS FMLA form, log in to Colleague Zone at ColleagueZone.CVS.com, open the myLeave tool under My Apps, and initiate a leave request; CVS then generates the medical certification paperwork for your healthcare provider, which must be returned within 15 calendar days. If you can’t get online, call the HR Service Center at 1-888-694-7287 (TTY: 711), Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. EST, and follow the prompts to Leave of Absence.1CVS Health. Leave of Absence Guide
Once you open a request, a Case Manager is assigned to your file. Choose the leave category that matches your situation — your own serious health condition, care for a family member, military leave, military family leave, or personal leave. The category you select drives which forms the system produces and which legal protections attach to your absence.1CVS Health. Leave of Absence Guide
What to Have Ready Before You Open myLeave
Small errors on the intake screen slow everything down. Gather this first:
- Your seven-digit CVS Health ID, the same one you use to log in to Colleague Zone.2CVS Health Benefits. CVS Health Benefits Login
- Your store or facility number, so the request routes to the correct regional team.
- Your immediate manager’s name.
- Precise start and end dates for the leave.
- For medical leaves: your healthcare provider’s full name, address, phone number, and fax number. The system uses these to generate and route the certification forms.3eCFR. 29 CFR 825.306 – Content of Medical Certification
If the leave is to care for a family member, you’ll also need enough detail about the family member’s condition and treatment plan for their provider to explain why your care is needed and how long the absence should last.4U.S. Department of Labor. Fact Sheet 28G – Medical Certification Under the Family and Medical Leave Act
The Medical Certification and the 15-Day Deadline
After you submit the request, CVS sends a medical certification form for your healthcare provider to complete. You have 15 calendar days from the date CVS requests it to return the completed form.5eCFR. 29 CFR 825.305 – Certification, General Rule
The certification asks the provider to state when the condition began, how long it’s expected to last, relevant medical facts about symptoms or treatment, and whether the condition prevents you from performing your job functions. For family-member care, the provider explains why the family member needs your assistance and estimates how long that care will be needed.3eCFR. 29 CFR 825.306 – Content of Medical Certification
Missing the 15-day window has real consequences. For foreseeable leave, CVS can deny FMLA coverage for the entire period between the deadline and the day the paperwork actually arrives. For unforeseeable leave, the same denial applies unless extenuating circumstances made it impossible to meet the deadline. If you never return the certification, the leave is not FMLA-protected at all, and you lose the job-restoration guarantee.6eCFR. 29 CFR 825.313 – Failure to Provide Certification
Contact the provider’s office the day you receive the form. Fifteen calendar days goes fast once weekends and scheduling get involved. If a delay is genuinely outside your control, document what you did and when — that record matters if CVS later questions the timing.
Intermittent Leave Adds More to the Form
If you’ll be taking time off in separate blocks rather than one continuous stretch, the certification must include an estimate of how long each absence will last, how often you expect to be absent, and why the medical condition makes intermittent leave necessary instead of a single block. Providers aren’t expected to predict an exact schedule; the Department of Labor allows a “best-informed medical judgment” when flare-ups or treatments are unpredictable.7U.S. Department of Labor. Information for Health Care Providers to Complete a Certification Under the FMLA
When to File: Notice Requirements
If the leave is foreseeable — a planned surgery, an expected due date, a scheduled deployment — federal law requires at least 30 days’ advance notice. When 30 days isn’t realistic because circumstances changed or you learned of the need later, give notice as soon as possible, ideally the same day or the next business day.8eCFR. 29 CFR 825.302 – Employee Notice Requirements for Foreseeable FMLA Leave
For emergencies, notify CVS as soon as you’re able. The sooner you initiate the request in myLeave, the sooner FMLA protection can attach to the absence.
FMLA Eligibility, Briefly
Not everyone who requests leave through myLeave qualifies for FMLA protection. To be eligible, you must have worked for CVS for at least 12 months, logged at least 1,250 hours during the 12 months before leave begins, and work at a site with 50 or more CVS employees within 75 miles.9eCFR. 29 CFR 825.110 – Eligible Employee If you don’t meet those tests, you may still be approved for a CVS personal leave or a state-specific leave program, but the federal job-restoration rules described here won’t apply.
Getting Paid While You’re Out
FMLA leave itself is unpaid. CVS provides company-paid short-term disability for a medical leave taken for your own health condition. After a seven-day waiting period, the benefit pays 80 percent of your annual benefits base rate for the first six weeks of certified disability, then 60 percent for the next 19 weeks.10CVS Health. Disability Insurance
Short-term disability runs alongside FMLA when you’re out for your own serious health condition; the FMLA provides job protection while STD replaces part of your paycheck. Personal leave and leave to care for a family member do not qualify for short-term disability, because that benefit only covers your own medical condition. Some states also run mandatory disability or paid family leave programs; check State Specific Leave Plans on Colleague Zone under Pay, Time & Benefits > Compensation & Benefits > Leaves & Disability for details tied to your work location.1CVS Health. Leave of Absence Guide
Returning to Work and Fitness-for-Duty
When you’re ready to come back from FMLA leave, you have the right to return to the same position, or to an equivalent role with the same pay, benefits, and working conditions. That right holds even if CVS hired someone to cover the absence or restructured your position while you were out.11eCFR. 29 CFR 825.214 – Employee Right to Reinstatement
If your leave was for your own serious health condition, CVS may require a fitness-for-duty certification before you resume work. Your provider signs off that you can perform the essential functions of your job. CVS has to notify you of this requirement in the designation notice at the start of the leave; it cannot add it at the end.12eCFR. 29 CFR 825.312 – Fitness-for-Duty Certification The cost of obtaining that certification is yours. Not providing one when required lets CVS delay your return, and returning without either a fitness-for-duty certification or a new medical certification for an ongoing condition can lead to termination.6eCFR. 29 CFR 825.313 – Failure to Provide Certification
Extending Your Leave or Checking Status
If you need more time than your original end date allows, submit the extension request through myLeave before the current leave expires, not after. Updated medical certification may be required, and the same 15-day return rule applies to recertification.1CVS Health. Leave of Absence Guide
Log back in through Colleague Zone > My Apps > myLeave at any point during your absence to check status and confirm that documents have been received. For anything the tool doesn’t answer, call the HR Service Center at 1-888-694-7287; representatives can walk you through forms, explain your specific benefits, and connect you with your Case Manager.1CVS Health. Leave of Absence Guide