As usual, businesses sit on the razor's edge; they must provide for the safety and health of their employees, comply with complex governmental regulations and, at the same time, try to place all workers in jobs without regard to age, sex, race, religion, and, of course, disability, as mandated by the 1992 Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) went further than the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, and for many employers this meant changing the way they offered and conducted medical examinations and utilized medical evaluation data in placing and accommodating employees. The key OSHA/business and employee/ADA issue, from a medical evaluation perspective, is whether and how the medical evaluation results and interpretations will be used in job placement for initial hire, continuing fitness for duty, and return to work from occupational and non-occupational injury and illness.
