What do you do if an employee comes to you seeking accommodation for a mental condition that qualifies as a disability? In a BLR webinar, “Depression and Other Mental Illness Under New ADA: Accommodation Practices for HR,” Susan G. Fentin, Esq., and Ronald Schouten, M.D., J.D., gives advice on how to handle these types of accommodation requests.

What would you do if:

• A depressed employee wants time off?
• An employee with an anxiety disorder wants to be able to leave work at will?
• A bipolar employee wants special treatment from supervisor?

These are all examples of requests employers face from employees with mental conditions that qualify as disabilities under the ADA regulations.

Fentin advised in the webinar, “an employer faced with a request for an accommodation can request medical documentation of the nature, severity, duration, and the extent of the psychological impairment.” You are very much entitled to documentation. However, be mindful of the source: the clinician is the employee/patient’s advocate.

If the employee does not have documentation or refuses to provide it, then no accommodation will be required. However, you must provide a reasonable amount of time to provide the documentation.

Employer Obligations

For any employee with a mental condition that qualifies as a disability under ADA regulations, the employer has obligations when the employee requests accommodation.

Fentin advised: “your obligation is to engage in the interactive process. I cannot stress this more strenuously: you really, really have to engage in this interactive process. It in and of itself can be cause of action under the ADA, the way the new ADA is written.”

“You need to determine whether there are any reasonable accommodations that will allow the employee to perform the essential functions of his or her position.”

Remember, the employee need not use any “magic words” to request accommodation; they simply have to say something that would lead you to believe that they needed help in performing their job. If employer had enough information to identify disability as issue, there is an obligation to inquire further.

In a related article, Fentin and Schouten discuss the new ADAAA regulations and explain the definition of “mental impairment”.

For more information on ADA regulations as they relate to mental conditions, order the webinar recording. To register for a future webinar, visit http://catalog.blr.com/audio.

Attorney Susan G. Fentin is a partner in the labor and employment firm of Skoler, Abbot & Presser, P.C. She has been ranked in 2010 and 2011 as one of the top labor and employment attorneys in Massachusetts by the prestigious Chambers USA rating agency.

Dr. Ronald Schouten is the director of the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His clinical and consultation practices are focused on executives and professionals confronted with career issues, work-life balance problems, and mood and anxiety disorders.