Medical certification and ADA disability

KLeede

We have an employee who has a mental illness and has only had a performance problem in the past when he stopped his medication. He is behaving in a similar way now and is acting paranoid. We don't think he's able to work any longer and want his physician to know what his job duties are, so that we can figure out if he can be accommodated. He's on medical leave right now. Can we ask him to let us to talk to his physician? And if we ask for a fit-for-duty certification from the physician, can we give the physician a list of job duties for that?

hr410

You can ask for recertification of his need for leave if it has been 30 days or more since his last certification. In the request for recertification, you can include a copy of the employee's job description. The Department of Labor also has a good, legal certification form for such purposes (WH-380), which is on the DOL website at http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fmla/wh380.pdf. You might also want to take a look at the EEOC's guidance on psychiatric disabilities at: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/psych.html