As summer winds down, the challenges impacting health care employers in 2019 continue to heat up. These challenges include ongoing developments regarding marijuana legalization, employee resistance to vaccination mandates, workplace violence prevention, state health insurance mandates, and more. In this issue of Take 5, we address these key developments and provide recommendations for action.
The U.S. Department of Justice reached a January 31, 2019 settlement of an American with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) Title III complaint against health care provider Selma Medical Associates relating to provision of medical services to an individual with opioid use disorder (“OUD”). The settlement is notable for health care providers and employers as it makes clear that DOJ considers OUD as a disability under the ADA thereby triggering the full panoply of ADA rights for those with OUD.
In a major decision sure to provoke controversy and legislative attempts to overrule it, the en banc Seventh Circuit, by a vote of 8 to 4, has held in Kleber v. CareFusion Corp., (No. 17-1206, Jan 23, 2019), that Section 4(a)(2) of the federal Age Discrimination In Employment Act (“ADEA”) does not provide rejected external applicants with a cause of action.
Almost ten months into the Trump Administration, the executive and legislative branches have been preoccupied with attempting to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) – but each attempt has thus far proved fruitless. While the debate rages over the continued viability of the ACA, as we stated in our previous Take 5, employers should remember that obligations to comply with Section 1557 (the non-discrimination provision of the ACA) and the final rule implementing that provision remain. But there have been developments regarding which characteristics are protected by Section 1557. In this Take 5, we explore whether Section 1557 continues to cover gender identity and transition services.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Access Board announced that the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (“VA”) will adopt the new Accessibility Standards for Medical Diagnostic Equipment.
As mentioned in our January 31, 2017, blog post, “The U.S. Access-Board Releases Long-Awaited Final Accessible Medical Diagnostic Equipment Standards,” the Access Board released its new Accessibility Standards for Medical Diagnostic Equipment (the “MDE Standards”) at the beginning of the year, with an effective date of February 8, 2017.
Our colleague Frank C. Morris, Jr., a Member of the Firm in the Litigation and Employee Benefits practices, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in “Retaliation, ADA Charges Rise” by Allen Smith. The article discusses the uptick in retaliation charges which have been filed and includes tips for employers on how to reduce the likelihood that they will get hit with those types of charges.