An official-looking notice just landed from the Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave, and your stomach dropped a little. One of your employees applied for paid leave, and now the state is asking you to do something, with a deadline attached. Before you do anything, take a breath: this is a routine, expected step, you are not in trouble, and what the state wants from you is simpler than the notice makes it look.
Short answer: A DFML notice means one of your employees has applied for PFML. You have 10 business days to review the application and respond in the state portal. Responding supplies facts (hours, prior leave, anything that looks wrong); it does not approve or deny the claim. The state makes that decision.
What this notice actually is
When an employee applies for Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML), the Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) loops you in. You will typically get one email when the employee starts an application and a second email once they submit it. That second email is the one that matters: it contains a link to review the application and it starts a clock.
Here is the single most reassuring thing to understand. DFML is not asking you to approve or deny the leave. It is asking you to confirm that the facts the employee entered are accurate, add anything the state needs, and flag anything that looks wrong. DFML makes the actual decision. You supply information; the state adjudicates. Keep that distinction in your head and most of the anxiety drains out of the process.
You are a fact-checker here, not a judge. Your job is to make sure the numbers and dates are right, not to decide whether your employee gets leave. That decision belongs to DFML.
The 10-business-day clock, explained
Once the employee submits their application, DFML notifies you, and you have 10 business days to review it and respond. Business days, not calendar days, so weekends and holidays do not count against you, but do not let it drift.
If you respond, DFML factors your input into its decision. If you do not respond, nothing bad happens to you personally, but DFML will simply proceed and decide using only the information your employee submitted. That is the real reason to respond on time: it is your one clean opportunity to correct anything that is off before the state acts on it. Miss the window and you have effectively waived your say.
For a full picture of how this deadline fits alongside every other date in a leave, the Massachusetts PFML timeline for employers lays the sequence out end to end.
Exactly how to respond, step by step
You respond through the leave administrator dashboard on the state's PFML portal, not by replying to the email. Here is the path.
- Open the portal at paidleave.mass.gov and log in to your leave administrator account.
- If no one at your company has an account yet, create one using your organization's MassTaxConnect information, or ask whoever manages your MassTaxConnect account to add you.
- Find the application in the dashboard. It will show a "Review Application" button and the date your review is due.
- Confirm or correct the facts the state asks about (see the next section).
- If something looks fraudulent, say so in the review; DFML will follow up with the employee.
- Mark the application as approved, denied, or still pending, and if it is not a clean approval, use the text field to briefly explain why, based on the law and your policies.
- Submit before the due date shown on the application.
If you are the wrong person to be reviewing this, do not just ignore it. Call DFML at (833) 344-7365 and have the right person added as leave administrator so the clock does not run out on an empty inbox.
What you can (and cannot) dispute
This is where employers most often overreach, so it helps to know your actual lane. DFML asks you to confirm or provide a specific, limited set of facts:
- Other leave the employee has taken in the current benefit year, including federal FMLA or your own company leave programs, since it affects how much PFML they have left.
- Work patterns and hours, meaning the average hours the employee works per week and the leave schedule they are requesting.
- Potential fraud, if you have a genuine reason to believe the employee is not being truthful about the reason for leave or a family relationship.
- Your recommendation on the application: approved, denied, or pending, with a short explanation if it is not approved.
What you cannot do is deny leave that the employee is entitled to. You do not get to block PFML because coverage is inconvenient, because you are short-staffed, or because you would rather they took the leave later. You correct facts and raise legitimate concerns. DFML decides. If your instinct is to push back on the leave itself rather than the facts, that is a sign to slow down; the questions every employer should ask before approving leave walks through what is genuinely yours to weigh in on.
A quick word on the other DFML letters
The review request is not the only mail DFML sends. If you get a different letter, here is how to tell them apart and what each one asks of you.
| Notice type | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Application review request | An employee submitted a PFML application and DFML wants you to confirm the facts | Respond in the portal within 10 business days |
| Notice of decision (approval or denial) | DFML has decided the claim after review | No action required; note the leave dates and plan coverage |
| Appeal notice | The employee (or you) is contesting a decision | Follow the instructions and deadline in the letter; consider legal counsel |
| Leave schedule or extension update | The employee changed or extended their leave | Review the new dates and adjust coverage and health-insurance handling |
Most notices are informational. Only the application review request carries the 10-business-day action item, so if you are unsure which one you are holding, check whether it is asking you to review something in the portal by a specific date.
A real-world example
Say a warehouse supervisor at a 30-person company applies for 12 weeks of bonding leave after his second child is born. The owner gets the DFML email, panics, and assumes she has to decide whether to grant it. She logs into the portal and sees the application asks her to confirm his average weekly hours and whether he has taken other leave this benefit year.
She notices he is listed at 40 hours a week, but he actually dropped to 32 hours three months ago. She corrects it, confirms he has taken no other leave, marks the application approved, and submits, well inside the 10 days. That is the whole task. She did not approve or deny his right to leave; DFML did that. She just made sure his benefit would be calculated on the right hours. Ten minutes, done.
Common mistakes
A few predictable missteps turn a simple task into a headache.
Ignoring the notice because it looks bureaucratic. The 10-business-day clock is real. Let it lapse and you lose your chance to correct the record, and the state decides on the employee's numbers alone.
Treating the response as an approval you control. Marking "denied" because you do not want to lose the employee for three months does not stop the leave. It just adds friction and can look retaliatory. Denials should rest on facts and policy, not inconvenience.
Asking for medical details you are not entitled to. The application review does not require you to interrogate the employee about their condition. Confirm hours and prior leave; leave the medical determination to DFML.
Forgetting the obligations that continue after the decision. Once leave is approved, you still have to hold the job and keep health insurance running on the same terms. For the complete list, see the Massachusetts PFML employer responsibilities guide.
What to hold onto
A DFML notice is not an accusation or a bill. It is the state inviting you to check a few facts before it makes a decision it was always going to make. Log in, confirm the hours and dates, flag anything genuinely off, submit inside 10 business days, and then turn your attention to the part that is actually yours: covering the role and protecting the job. Do that, and you have handled the notice exactly the way the calmest employers do.
This guide explains the practical steps, not legal advice for your specific situation. If a claim involves suspected fraud or a contested appeal, it is worth a quick call with an employment attorney.