Based on what I know listening to the stories of many women going on short term disability just prior to maternity leave (but overall big picture details should be unaffected)...
Contact your company HR to contact benefits. If nothing is being done, contact benefits directly and ask what info is required beyond the doctors note as the doctor is requiring a leave of absence for work. They then should communicate with you and company HR to get the ball rolling.
The company may ask for a copy of the note from the doctor. This is no biggie. The doctor literally sends in a note saying something along the lines of, "I Doctor deem that X should not work from X date to X date for medical reasons" which has no details of why the individual is gone. The doctor would fill in the form with the details why for benefits of course, but I do not believe the company should ever see any of the details of why short term disability was required and I don't believe they are legally entitled to know. Benefits approving the disability is all they need to know. Now if that information is volunteered to the company by yourself or your spouse... that's a different story.
Keep in mind that for some of these situations, if your spouse is on short term disability, there are some restrictions on your spouse. For instance, you may need to clear any travel plans while she is on disability with the benefits provider. I believe this is the way they try to reduce abuse of benefits claims. If a doctor's note requires a certain level of activity restriction (ie: Bed rest or limited activities away from home etc.) then adhering to that will be necessary as well. Benefits will also call you a ton of times to confirm certain things over and over (sometimes can be multiple times a week) and if you're often (vs occasionally) at a noisy location when you're supposed to be home resting or not picking up the phone, it doesn't look good and they may investigate further. If you're supposed to get certain things done (ie: Tests or counseling etc.) and that's not being done, benefits may wonder what's going on and investigate too.
Sometimes as well the company may consider that you are "not technically an employee" while on disability and will completely cut off any type of access while you are on disability (ie: key cards don't work, laptop/phone required to be returned, login/online access/email suspended etc.). This does make sense because if you're on disability like this, because you aren't supposed to be fit for work anyways and it kinda covers the company against the benefits providers wondering if there's some type of benefits abuse (ie: Company using benefits to top up your wages while you're technically full fledged working for the company). However, this might mean the method your spouse may be using to communicate with a colleague friend is cut off if personal or alternate communication methods are not acquired before then. Just something to note.
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