Short Term Disability Approval?

I was told by my employer that notice of approval or denied for Short Term Disability (through Unum) is usually by the week you are having surgery. I would like to know if I would be getting paid before that. lol Please let me know what your experience was - how long after you submitted your paperwork were you notified that you were approved or denied. My surgery is scheduled in June. I submitted my paperwork 04/25/17.

I think, generally speaking, most people don't go for short-term disability, unless they have a very physical job. I'd say a week out of work is the usual time off. Unfortunately, many short-term disability policies don't cover you for the first two weeks and you have to use sick/vacation time first. Of course, your employer's policy may be different.

Good luck.

I did do short term disability, and from my past work in HR many folks do use it. Our policy stated we only needed to use 2 days of sick time before we could claim it, and it was paid at 80% of my pay. I was out for 2 weeks (I have a desk job). In my case, my surgeon was 90 minutes from home so I used a significant amount of my 12 sick days getting there and back for the many appointments leading up to surgery. I only had about 3-4 total days left by the time I got my surgery in January and needed to use those for post op appointments (our time renews in July). I submitted my claim and was approved within a couple days. Our policy is through Cigna. Payment wasn't very prompt, I was nearly back to work before my first check came.

In my case, STD kicks in after 2 weeks of sick/vacation time. I was back to work after 2 weeks, so STD was unnecessary.

I had to take one week of vacation time, then STD kicked in (I used one week of it). My surgeons office always suggests you take STD if available. I was only off 2 weeks because I could work from home an additional 2 weeks. I could have managed with only one week off, but would have been exhausted that second week (it took the 4 weeks to get close to the energy level needed to do the commute).

What others have written about STD. My 2 cents worth is that when I was still working our village policy was that we had to use ALL of our sick and vacay time before going on STD and we still then needed to be out of work for 30 days before we would get paid anything.

You would be better off taking sick/vacay time.

I absolutely used my STD for my surgery (I also used it when I had my plastic surgery). I took 4 weeks off for the DS (plus came back part time for 2 weeks). I used the STD to supplement my sick/vacation, so I was paid my full salary the entire time I was out (STD paid 66-2/3 and used vac/sick for the remaining 33-1/3).

Unfortunately I don't remember the specifics - I worked directly with my company's HR rep and she was awesome.

I would assume every company and insurance company is different.

I definitely used STD after my surgery. My surgeon scheduled me out for 4 weeks, and that is what I applied for, but only ended up taking 3 weeks. My employers policy was that the first week was vacation/sick time, then the remaining was at 66% pay, which I supplemented with additional sick/vacation time to make it full pay. I have not heard of anyone ever being denied short term disability because of the type of surgery, but I don't work in HR and my only experience is with child birth and WLS.

I plan on having plastic surgery, hopefully sometime this year, and plan to use STD for my time off.

In response I'm in STD now. Per my company I qualified after the first 7 days. I applied for 4 weeks per the suggestion of my surgeon. However I just had my 2 week check up and due to me working inside a lab and no water is allowed and I'm still at risk for dehydration he bumped me out to 6 weeks. Most patients are at risk since we are learning about our new changes. I'm no where near what the suggested amount of fluids are at this time so I'm glad he's watching out for me. I don't want to be admitted or sent to the ER for fluids. I'll stay home for 6 weeks on STD and recover properly and learn what changes have been made within me. :)

I had no problems getting approved through Unum for STD. I know it was well before my procedure, but that was 12 years ago. I couldn't tell you exactly how long before.