William Schurgin and Kristin McGurn Published in the CCH Health Care Compliance Letter
“The ADA Amendments Act: Expanded Disability Challenges for Health Care Employers”

William Schurgin and Kristin McGurn’s article, “The ADA Amendments Act: Expanded Disability Challenges for Health Care Employers,” was published in the October 6, 2009 CCH Health Care Compliance Letter. Their article discusses how the amendment to the American’s with Disabilities Act, which went into effect on January 1, 2009, has changed the landscape of disability discrimination in the workplace.

According Bill and Kristin’s article, the ADAAA significantly broadens the definition of disability under the ADA. It states that employers should generally not consider mitigating measures when assessing whether an employee is entitled to the statute’s protection and requires employers to change the way they evaluate whether a worker has a disability and how they handle medical impairments in the workplace.

Bill and Kristin’s article provides information on the expanded definitions of “disability” under the ADAAA. The authors note how the amendment retains the same definitional language as the original statute, but explicitly states that disability must be construed broadly so that the statute’s coverage applies “to the maximum extent.”

The authors discuss how healthcare employees will now be considered to have a protected disability even if their impairments are completely corrected by taking medication. Employers will need to evaluate whether the employee has a disability in the absence of their medication. The authors note that “the ADAAA specifically protects individuals with episodic impairments even when their conditions are in remission as long as the impairment, when active, would substantially limit a major life activity such as asthma, migraine headaches or allergies.” Given the ADAAA’s expanded definition of disability, the authors note that “health employers should expect more frequent request for reasonable accommodation and disability related claims.”

Bill and Kristin conclude that “the ADAAA has changed the playing field for evaluating and responding to disability discrimination issues in the health care workplace. As a result, health care employers need to carefully reevaluate their existing procedures for addressing disability issues in the workplace. In doing so, employers should place particular emphasis on the reasonable accommodation process and delineating essential job functions and legitimate job qualifications.”