Jun
19
Protecting Your Job While Chronically Ill – NYTimes.com
Filed Under Work & Disability | Leave a Comment
It started with an odd sensation in her right hand and a feeling of exhaustion so profound she could hardly get through an hour of work, let alone a full day.
After numerous tests and countless doctors’ visits, Natasha Frechette, then 27, learned she had multiple sclerosis, a disease that attacks the central nervous system and can cause numbness, blindness and eventual paralysis.
In addition to grappling with the diagnosis, Ms. Frechette was concerned about keeping her job as a data manager for a small research organization in Brooklyn Park, Minn. “I didn’t want to have to depend on someone to take care of me,” she said. “But I know that I could wake up tomorrow and not be able to walk.”
Workers with chronic illnesses face chronic uncertainty, forced to worry not only about their health but about their jobs as well. The protections afforded chronically ill workers in the United States are thin and somewhat vague. To protect their health and their jobs, workers must navigate employers’ policies, which may include short- and long-term disability plans, as well as a patchwork of federal laws and regulations.
A recent study by the Center for Economics and Policy Research, a Washington, D.C., research organization, found that among 22 rich nations, the United States is the only one that does not guarantee workers paid time off for illness.
Most other countries provide their workers not only with paid sick days, but also time off for cancer treatments, the study found. German citizens, for example, are allowed five sick days and 44 days for cancer treatment, if needed, in addition to vacation days.
Most employers in the United States allow employees to take days off for minor ailments, like the flu or outpatient operations, without docking their pay. And 41 percent offer employees days off — nine, on average — for illness or other reasons, in addition to vacation days, according to a 2007 survey by Mercer, a benefits consulting business based in New York.
But when an employee has a serious or chronic illness, like diabetes, major depression or lupus, the rules about time off become murky.
read the rest via Protecting Your Job While Chronically Ill – NYTimes.com.
Nov
21
Virus Causing Glandular Fever Could also be Behind Multiple Sclerosis
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The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) that causes glandular fever could also be behind multiple sclerosis, Australian scientists say.
Ninety per cent of people carry EBV virus, but those with MS may be unable to control the level of EBV in their brains, a study at the University of Queensland seems to indicate. The EBV-infected B cells tend to accumulate in the brain in such cases, triggering MS, it is theorized.
Michael Pender, professor of medicine at the University of Queensland and lead author of the research published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, said the findings were an important step in understanding the cause of MS.
“The significance of our work … is that it opens that possibility that by controlling EBV infection, either by vaccination or antiviral drugs, we may prevent MS or stop progression of the disease,” Professor Pender said.
read the rest: Virus Causing Glandular Fever Could also be Behind Multiple Sclerosis
Nov
13
WASHINGTON AP — Congress and the Obama administration should end the two-year wait that people deemed too sick to work by the government face before qualifying for Medicare, lawmakers and leading advocacy groups said Wednesday.
Medicare covers people 65 and older and the disabled, and at any time, 1.5 million disabled people find themselves waiting to qualify. About 40 percent are uninsured during part of that wait, while 25 percent are without insurance during the entire 24 months. Of the rest, some get coverage through Medicaid, but many end up depleting their savings on private insurance and medical bills.
Legislation sponsored by Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., would eliminate the waiting period gradually over 10 years. The proposal also would set up a process so people with life-threatening illnesses could get coverage right away.
“Every year, we’d reduce it by a few months, so we get down to a level that’s manageable for folks,” Green said at a Capitol Hill event. He and Bingaman are trying to get their plan incorporated in a health reform package expected from President-elect Obama, who co-sponsored a version of their bill last year.
But if a health overhaul stalls as it did during the last Democratic administration, Green and Bingaman say they think they might be able to pass their bill anyway. Separately, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who heads the committee that oversees Medicare, also announced he supports doing away with the waiting period.
The legislation would solve the kind of predicament that 45-year-old Yvonne Brown of Waldorf, Md., had to face. She had a steady job as an audio engineer for a radio network. But in 2000 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease in which the immune system attacks the nerves. She was granted Social Security disability payments in 2003, only to find out that she would have to wait two more years for Medicare.
Brown said she sold her house to pay for medical bills, but eventually wound up homeless. She was reduced to sleeping in her car because shelters were concerned that by accepting her, they would become liable for the costs of her treatment. One type of MS medication was costing $2,200 a month.
“It is an irresponsible and demeaning system that declares people disabled, and then forces them to wait two years for health insurance,” Brown.
read the rest: The Associated Press: Campaign to end 2-year insurance gap for disabled
Editor’s note: As it stands now, the two year waiting period starts to run from your date of disability, which may be determined to be much earlier than when you are actually certified by SSA as disabled. In my case, it was nearly 1-1/2 years after I first sought medical treatment for what turned out to be MS that I was awarded SSDI, so I only had to wait six months after that before I became eligible for Medicare.
But any waiting period makes no sense.
Apr
6
Termination shouldn’t be the answer to a disability | Houston Chronicle
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Termination shouldn’t be the answer to a disability
So when do you tell the boss? And how much do you say?
For workers with a hidden disability — or one that’s not very obvious — they’re thorny questions.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide a reasonable accommodation for employees who can perform the essential functions of their job.
But if you’re feeling vulnerable already, it’s not so easy to ask for help, whether it’s a stool for a cashier or time off to go to the doctor.
First reaction: quit
For those who have been recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, many times their immediate reaction is to think they need to quit, said Alicia Barron, coordinator of programs and services for the Lone Star Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in Houston.
Typically, that’s the time when their symptoms of the autoimmune disorder are the most severe, she said. Multiple sclerosis is most commonly diagnosed between the prime working ages of 20 and 50.
But the symptoms, which vary widely from person to person, can come and go. At times walking can be difficult, while at other times it’s easy. Vision can wax and wane.
The accommodations don’t have to be complicated, said Barron, whose society is part sponsor of a new site, www.msworkplace.com. Some can be as simple as changing a computer font for someone struggling to read a screen.
Looking at a job change
For others, an accommodation isn’t enough, and a job change might be the better option. She said it doesn’t necessarily have to mean a new field, though. If someone is working in construction and finds it increasingly difficult to handle the heat or fatigue or perhaps is having trouble with balance, construction management might be a good alternative.
The key is to keep folks working if that’s what they want to do.
“I think sometimes employers don’t think about how to keep the person. They just let them go,” said Barron, whose dad lost his job after an MS diagnosis.
[more at link]