Fired or marked no-show while your Amazon leave was approved
Here's the order to work in, starting tonight. Most of these steps have nothing to do with Certicare — we complete medical documentation, and a state-licensed provider signs it. The guide is free either way.
Certicare completes medical documentation. We don't file appeals, write appeal letters, argue your case with Amazon HR, ERC, or DLS, or give legal advice, and we can't get a job back. If you ask us to, we can send a completed form to DLS. If your case is waiting on a provider-completed form, that part is ours and costs $49; the rest of this page is free.
Can Amazon fire you while you're on approved leave?
Yes. That answer is the least comfortable thing on this page, and getting it wrong is how people lose weeks arguing the wrong point.
Start with what the law does protect. Under the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act), an employer is "prohibited from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of, or the attempt to exercise, any FMLA right" (DOL Fact Sheet #77B). The same fact sheet lists using your leave as a negative factor in discipline as prohibited conduct.
Now the limit. The regulation says an employee "has no greater right to reinstatement or to other benefits and conditions of employment than if the employee had been continuously employed" (29 CFR 825.216(opens in a new tab)). A layoff or a discipline track that started before your leave can still reach you while you're out.
Here's the part nobody tells you. To refuse to give the job back, Amazon has to show you would have lost it anyway. The same regulation says "an employer must be able to show that an employee would not otherwise have been employed," and in a layoff it puts "the burden of proving that an employee would have been laid off during the FMLA leave period" on the employer. That is narrower than it sounds and it is not a rule about every firing. It is still why a dated record is worth building this week.
When FMLA protection does hold, the DOL describes the remedy plainly: "the FMLA requires that the employer return the employee to the same job, or one that is nearly identical (equivalent)."
The marks inside the approved range are the ones to write down. Everything below is about proving that overlap.
Why does my leave show approved but I'm marked no-show?
Nobody outside Amazon can tell you what happened inside your record. What is documented is that this exact mismatch happens, and that you are not the first person to see it.
In 2021, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor, Karen Weise, and Grace Ashford investigated Amazon's leave system. Their reporting found workers "accidentally fired because they were being marked as abandoning their job when in fact they were on an approved leave," and described a leave system spread across back-office call centers and online systems that don't necessarily talk to each other. Amazon acknowledged problems at the time and said it was putting fixes in place.
It's still being alleged. In Coddens v. Amazon.com Services LLC, filed July 17, 2026 in the Northern District of Indiana, the complaint alleges that FMLA leave approved so he could care for his wife was not properly applied in Amazon's records, that the worker was marked for absences falling inside his approved leave, that he contacted HR repeatedly to get it corrected, and that he was fired anyway.
Those are allegations in a filed complaint, not findings. The case has not been decided, and Amazon has not publicly responded to it.
None of that establishes what happened in your case. It does tell you the failure pattern is known and on the record, which is worth having when someone implies the system doesn't make this kind of mistake. And it points at the fix, which is documentary: show, with dates, that the absence falls inside an approved leave.
Certicare is not affiliated with Amazon. Amazon makes the final decision on leave and accommodation requests. This page is general information about the leave process, not legal advice.
What do I do first, tonight?
Six things, in this order. Most of them need nothing but your phone.
Screenshot before anything changes. In A to Z, go to MyHR, then My Requests, then Open cases, and open your leave case. Capture the status it shows, the date range it covers, your attendance and UPT screen, and the absences in question. Then the termination notice itself.
Send those screenshots to a personal email address, not your work one. Company accounts can stop working quickly after a termination, and everything above lives behind that login. If yours still works, that doesn't mean anything has been reversed.
Write down the exact status your case shows. If it says "provisionally approved" rather than approved, write that word down with the date you saw it. Don't interpret it yet. Record it.
Read your notice for two things only: the reason it gives, and any deadline or appeal instruction it names. Appeal instructions sometimes arrive in a separate message afterward, so watch your email and texts too. Go by those documents, not by what a forum thread remembers. The dates that matter to you are the ones printed on your own paperwork.
Respond in writing, even if you also call. Keep it short and factual: your case number, the dates of the absences, and the fact that the leave shows approved for those dates. Ask for written confirmation of what you're told.
If someone has asked you for medical documentation and you can't get a provider to complete it, start that tonight. Of everything on this list, it's the piece with the clearest fix.
A note on resigning: it's the step that's hardest to walk back. If anyone suggests it will simplify things, get that in writing before you do anything.
If what's holding up your case is a form nobody will complete, that part is fixable tonight.
Start My IntakeHow do I find my case number and build the paper trail?
Your case number is on the DLS emails and letters about your leave, and inside the leave request itself in A to Z. It may not appear on the summary card or on every notification. Put it at the top of everything you send from here on.
Then build one file. Not a folder of screenshots you'll never find again — one document, in date order, that a stranger could read in four minutes.
Put these in it: the date you opened the case, the date it was approved, the date range the approval covers, every date marked against you, and every contact since, with who you spoke to and what they said. Save each DLS message as a PDF rather than a screenshot where you can, because the header dates survive.
If your leave was approved, the approval message is the most valuable document you own. It's the one that turns "I was on leave" into a dated record that lines up against the absences.
This is the file that makes a restoration argument concrete. A timeline with dates on it is a different thing from a memory of a phone call.
Who do I escalate to, and in what order?
Order matters, because each step is evidence for the next one.
First, DLS, on the leave case itself. This is the record correction: your case number, the approved date range, and the specific dates marked against you. Ask them to confirm in writing what the case shows. If the leave still shows pending or denied, escalate inside DLS before going anywhere else.
Second, the attendance side. That's MyHR Live, which workers still call ERC, or your site HR team. DLS owns the leave record; attendance, points, and termination sit elsewhere. An approved leave should flow through, but it may not do so automatically or right away. Use this step once DLS has confirmed the approval and the points are still wrong, and attach that approval.
Third, the appeal route, if you have one. It may be in the termination notice or arrive in a separate message afterward, and not every termination is appeal-eligible. Follow whatever that message says exactly, including how and where to send things.
Fourth, outside Amazon. The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division takes FMLA complaints directly from workers at 1-866-487-9243, free, without a lawyer, and in parallel with anything happening inside Amazon. If your leave was disability-related, the EEOC is the other door.
One rule across all four: keep it in writing, or follow every call with an email that says what was said and when. An unanswered email is still a dated record that you asked.
How does the appeal work?
The specifics come from Amazon, not from us and not from a forum. The appeal route may be in your termination notice or arrive in a separate message afterward, and not every termination is appeal-eligible. Whatever that message says about how to appeal and by when is the version that counts.
What travels well in an appeal is documentary: the approval with its date range, the dates marked against you, your timeline of contacts, and a complete certification if the problem was ever described as a documentation problem. Attach the record. Argue less.
Certicare has no part in this step. We don't file appeals, write appeal letters, or argue your case with Amazon, and no paperwork service can promise you an outcome. If your appeal turns on missing paperwork or a certification that came back insufficient, that piece is ours, and it's covered further down.
The DOL route above doesn't wait for the appeal to finish. You can file with Wage and Hour while an internal appeal is still open.
What if DLS says my documentation was insufficient?
The word has a definition, and it's narrower than it sounds. Under 29 CFR 825.305(opens in a new tab), a certification is "incomplete" when "one or more of the applicable entries have not been completed," and "insufficient" when the certification is complete "but the information provided is vague, ambiguous, or non-responsive." In practice it usually means entries left blank, answers that don't respond to what was asked, or a generic document (a visit summary, discharge papers) sent in place of the requested information.
Now the most useful rule on this page. When an employer finds an FMLA certification incomplete or insufficient, it "shall advise" you and "shall state in writing what additional information is necessary to make the certification complete and sufficient." It must also give you "seven calendar days (unless not practicable ...)" to cure the deficiency.
Read that again in plain terms: "insufficient" is supposed to arrive with a written list of what's missing, and with time to fix it.
If yours didn't, write that down with the date. That's not a complaint you make in the moment. It's a fact you record, and it belongs in the timeline file.
One more timing from the same rule: the FMLA gives you 15 calendar days after the employer's request to provide the certification, unless that isn't practicable despite your diligent, good-faith efforts, or your employer allows more time.
These are FMLA rules, though. If your leave is running as an Amazon LOA or as an accommodation instead, the date that governs you is the one printed in your DLS message. Go by that one.
Using the DLS form is often the clearest way to provide every item requested and reduce follow-up.
What Certicare can and can't do here
Urgent care and telehealth apps routinely say they don't complete employer forms. In worker threads it shows up as "they won't fill it out." That paperwork refusal is the problem Certicare exists for.
You answer a short online questionnaire — usually no appointment, though a provider may follow up for more detail before deciding. A state-licensed provider then completes and signs the exact form DLS asked for, and it comes back to you by email, usually within 24 hours after we have everything needed. We can also send it directly to DLS if you asked us to.
$49 flat, one case. If DLS writes back wanting verification, clarification, or corrections, that's handled at no additional charge. If we can't complete your request, for any reason, you're refunded in full.
This doesn't reopen a closed case or undo a termination. It completes the documentation, and that's the whole of it.
One honest limit, then. If your case is closed and nobody has asked you for documentation, a new form is not your next step. The paper trail and the escalation order are.
A state-licensed provider completes the form DLS asked for, field by field, and answers DLS follow-up afterward. You don't need to know which form it is.
$49 covers your full DLS case: clinical review, the supported forms it needs, and any DLS verification, clarification, or corrections — no additional charges.
Secure online intake. Your information is reviewed by Certicare and is not sent to Amazon without your authorization.
If DLS or an administrator wants to verify the document, they can email hello@certicare.org.
When does this become a lawyer conversation?
Sooner than most people think, and it costs nothing to ask.
Four signals that it's time:
- You were fired over absences that fall inside an approved leave, and the record still isn't corrected after you put it in writing.
- Your leave was disability-related, and the accommodation was denied, or granted and never actually applied.
- You were told you'd be reinstated and you weren't.
- A filing deadline is running while you wait on an internal process.
Those deadlines are shorter than an appeal feels. An FMLA action must be brought "not later than 2 years after the date of the last event constituting the alleged violation," and 3 years if the violation was willful (29 U.S.C. 2617(c)). An EEOC charge has to be filed within 180 calendar days of the discrimination, extended to 300 calendar days where a state or local agency enforces a law prohibiting the same discrimination.
Where to start, for free. The DOL's Wage and Hour Division at 1-866-487-9243 doesn't require a lawyer or a fee, and the EEOC handles the disability side. The National Employment Lawyers Association keeps a member directory, and many employment lawyers take cases like this on contingency or offer a free first consultation. Many, not all, so ask before you book the call.
Certicare has no part in this step and doesn't give legal advice. It's on the page because it's the part of the answer you actually need.
Founded by someone who's been there
Rebecca Martel, APRN, FNP-BC, is a family nurse practitioner who has completed hundreds of these forms.