State Disability Insurance (SDI) and Paid Family Leave (PFL)
The California Employment Development Department (EDD) administers the State Disability Insurance Program (SDI). SDI is a partial wage-replacement insurance plan for California workers, funded through mandatory payroll deductions with two components:
- Disability Insurance (DI) provides benefits to workers unable to work due to non-work-related illness, injury, or pregnancy that prevents them from performing their regular or customary work.
- Paid Family Leave (PFL) provides benefits to workers who take time off work to care for a seriously ill child, spouse, parent, or registered domestic partner, or to bond with a new child.
SDI relies heavily on the medical community since all DI claims and a portion of PFL claims require Medical Certification with the following information:
- physician’s certification and license number
- estimated return date to patient’s regular or customary work
- ICD-9 codes and diagnoses (primary and secondary)
- nature, severity, and extent of the incapacitating disease or injury
- type of treatment surgery or procedure performed
- pregnancy due date
Workers may be unaware that they qualify for SDI benefits. We would like to partner with the medical community to better serve patients by making them aware of Disability Insurance (DI) and Paid Family Leave PFL) when the need arises.
For your convenience, click here to download the DI Benefits Claim Form (PDF document), or you may click here to order the PFL Claim Form.
In addition, physicians may also click here to make additional form requests.
I hope this information will help you and your patients properly complete claim forms so they can be processed more quickly. If you have any questions about the SDI programs, please visit our website at www.edd.ca.gov/disability.