Split the appointment into three jobs with three names on them, the ride there, the time inside and the ride home, then ask for the time off in hours rather than days. Under the FMLA, leave to care for a child, spouse or parent with a serious health condition runs up to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period, at employers with 50 or more employees, for people with at least 12 months and 1,250 hours of service (Fact Sheet #28). What changes the ask is the counting rule: intermittent leave is taken in the smallest unit your employer already uses for other leave, and that unit cannot be greater than an hour (Fact Sheet #28I), so a two-hour visit costs two hours.
Three jobs, three names, three confirmations
Start with the person going to the appointment. What help do they want, and who do they want in the room? A relative who can drive is not automatically a relative who should sit through the visit.
Write the three jobs as three rows with a status word against each: confirmed, offered, not arranged. Offered and confirmed are different states, and the difference is a return ride at 4:00 pm. Leave the empty row visible rather than letting the relative with the most flexible job quietly become the default for all three.
Ask the office two things before arranging anybody's day: the arrival instruction and the expected length of the visit. Then add the journey both ways before comparing the total with a shift. A 45-minute visit is rarely a 45-minute absence.
What the FMLA fact sheets put on the request
Quote the federal figures rather than describing them. Fact Sheet #28 sets coverage at private employers with 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks, a worksite with at least 50 employees within 75 miles, eligibility at 12 months and 1,250 hours of service, 12 workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for a child, spouse or parent's serious health condition, and 26 workweeks of military caregiver leave in a single 12-month period (Fact Sheet #28). The same page says an employer asking for information from a health care provider must allow 15 calendar days to supply it (Fact Sheet #28).
Timing carries its own number. Where the need for leave is foreseeable, the Department of Labor says the employee "must give at least 30 days advance notice if it is possible and practical to do so", and where 30 days is not possible, notice goes in as soon as possible and practical (Fact Sheet #28E). A follow-up booked six weeks out clears that line easily. One booked on Tuesday for Thursday does not, which is a reason to ask the office for the next appointment before leaving the current one.
Counting matters more than most people expect. Somebody regularly scheduled 50 hours a week has 600 hours of FMLA leave in a 12-month period, and hours they were not scheduled to work are not counted against the total (Fact Sheet #28I). Ask your employer what its smallest leave increment is before requesting a whole day for a 90-minute visit. Paid time off, sick leave and FMLA separates the three questions those figures belong to.
Keep the reason out of the shared calendar
A coworker arranging coverage needs "unavailable until 1:00 pm". They do not need the name of the clinic. Google Calendar's narrowest sharing level, "See only free/busy (hide details)", lets people see when you are busy without event names or details, and the same page notes that an administrator can have special permissions to find your calendar and all event details even when you have not shared it (Share your calendar). On a work account, write the address in the message to the driver instead.
Who gets which level is a separate decision from what the entry says. Sharing availability without the detail sets that up across the three main calendar apps.
An example: a 2:00 pm appointment on a 7-to-3 shift
Example. A 2:00 pm appointment, 25 minutes each way, an office that asks people to arrive 15 minutes early and expects the visit to take 45 minutes. That is 1:20 pm out the door to 3:10 pm back, one hour and fifty minutes against a shift that ends at 3:00 pm.
Requested in hours, the ask is two hours from 1:00 pm. Requested in days, it is eight hours. At an employer whose smallest leave unit is 30 minutes, the FMLA counting rule puts the cost at two hours of the 12-workweek entitlement (Fact Sheet #28I), not a day.
The return ride is the part that breaks. A driver covering 1:20 to 3:10 pm has not agreed to 4:00 pm, and an appointment that overruns lands on whoever is holding a phone. Name the person who makes that call before the day, and check that they are not on a floor where phones stay in a locker.
Send the sentence that states your limit
State a limit before it becomes an assumption: "I can drive there and stay until noon. I cannot promise the return ride after that. Can we arrange that leg separately before we confirm?" That is one sentence, and it prevents the two most common failures at once.
Afterwards, write down only the practical next actions the person wants help with: the next booking, the transport, the number to call. Questions about what an instruction means go back to the care team. The mechanics of the call to your own employer are in booking an appointment around an inflexible shift.
Send this to your manager, with the hours in it: "I need two hours on Thursday the 12th, 1:00 to 3:00 pm, for a family medical appointment. What is the smallest leave increment our timekeeping takes?"