What employers need to know when seeking medical documentation for accommodation requests

Those elements include whether the employee has a qualifying protected disability, whether the employee has made the need for accommodation known and whether the employer has sufficiently considered appropriate forms of accommodation to the point of undue hardship.

Read: How are pandemic reverberations affecting disability management programs, workplace accommodations?

What’s clear is that medical notes containing bare assertions are insufficient to establish disability. Recently, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal ruled that medical notes indicating that an employee was “totally disabled” for a specified period and could return to “regular work” on an estimated date, but contained no details of symptoms or functional limits, were insufficient to establish that the employee had a disability.

As the tribunal pointed out, vague documentation leaves employers in a situation where they’re unable to determine how they can provide reasonable accommodation. What’s reasonable, however, depends on the circumstances.

In one case, the Ontario Grievance Settlement Board dismissed an employer’s request for an employee’s full medical history. The employee had previously provided materials describing her diagnosis, her functional limitations and the restrictions affecting her ability to work.

As the arbitrator saw it, because the employer didn’t dispute the reliability of the information provided, the request for the full medical file amounted to a “fishing expedition” as it wasn’t limited to medical information that was demonstrably related to the dispute.

“This was a case where the employer was not challenging the nature of the employee’s disability based on the materials she had already provided, so further disclosure was unnecessary and intrusive,” Cook says.

Read: 2025 Mental Health Summit: How to develop a workplace accommodation framework

In a separate case involving British Columbia Ferry Services, a B.C. arbitrator had previously ordered the reinstatement of any employee but left the terms of reinstatement to be settled by the parties.

During the negotiations, the parties couldn’t agree whether the employer could require the employee’s doctor to complete the company’s medical questionnaire, which the company claimed was necessary for it to determine whether the employee could safely return to work.

The employee insisted that a medical opinion from his physician, which stated the employee’s condition was stable and that he was immediately employable without restriction, was sufficient information on which to base his reinstatement.

Previous evidence in the case, however, revealed the employee had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder that was chronic, episodic and varied between periods of stability and instability, with the possibility of more instability if the employee discontinued his medication.

The arbitrator ruled in the employer’s favour. He reasoned the physician’s opinion that his patient was stable at one point in time didn’t necessarily mean he would remain stable. Accordingly, completing a medical questionnaire was a reasonable step in assessing whether the employee could safely return to work.

“The lesson for employers from these cases is that they must tailor requests for medical information to the workplace issue at hand,” Cook says.

Read: How to successfully reintegrate a returning worker from disability leave