All accommodation requests should be acted upon quickly. A decision must be issued by the 30th day after the request. If a Disability Accommodation Medical Form (ADA-1-B) is filed, the Client Assistance Coordinator (CAC) must make his or her decision as soon as possible after receiving the necessary verification, but no later than 30 days from the applicant’s or client’s (hereafter referred to as client) request.
If the disability is not evident, the client will need to verify that the disability meets the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. In these situations, the client must provide medical documentation (with the Disability Accommodation Medical Form (ADA-1-B) of a physical or mental condition that substantially limits a major life activity (such as caring for oneself, walking, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, sleeping, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, breathing, learning and working) as compared to the ability of a person without a similar impairment to perform the same activity.
Important |
If the First Available Worker (FAW) gets an Action of an available verification for a client, s/he would open it. If it is a document that may have something to do with a disability/accommodation (verified through reviewing the case for a detailed narrative from the CAC or pending accommodation request), the FAW should Dismiss the Action and email the CAC for the TAO covering the client’s catchment area with a subject line of SECURE: Accommodation Verification and the text that reads: “Verification for client John Smith Agency ID 1234567 is available, appears to be relevant to pending ADA request.” The CAC will then disposition the verification, review if it is adequate, and/or follow up with the client as appropriate. |
Note |
A Narrative entry made by a CAC will be marked with a blue CAC circle, or a blue CAC circle with a “+” sign to indicate a client with an authorized representative. Authorized representatives for all clients may be found in the Actuate report entitled Authorized Rep/Payee Report. See ADA and Assisting Clients for the location of this report. |
If the client does not provide necessary documentation by day 30, the request is automatically denied. If verifications are provided after day 30, there is no need for the client to fill out a new request form. You should annotate the original request with the date the verifications were received and treat the accommodation request as renewed. This must be recorded on the Screening and Disposition pages of the Accommodation/Special Assistance workflow.
If the CAC, in consultation with the TAO Accommodation Team, denies the ADA accommodation request, or offers an ADA accommodation different from the original request, the client can request reconsideration by the Central Office Accommodation Appeal Committee. This committee has 10 days to make a decision on reconsideration requests. If a decision is not made within this time frame, the client can request a fair hearing with the Division of Hearings.