Rural Forensic Vocational Rehabilitation Practice: Challenges and Opportunities for Rehabilitation Professionals

Abstract

Forensic vocational rehabilitation involves evaluating individuals with disabilities and offering professional opinions regarding the ability of those individuals to work within the economy in a legal context. This chapter focuses on issues related to forensic litigation and vocational rehabilitation practice including Social Security Disability, worker compensation, personal injury, domestic relations, employment discrimination, and wrongful death. Residents of rural areas involved with forensic matters face challenges with access to employment, education, rehabilitation services, medical care, and transportation, which are different from those individuals residing in urban areas.

Appendices

Glossary of Terms

Administrative Law:

The branch of law governing the creation and operation of administrative agencies. Of special importance are the powers granted to administrative agencies, the substantive rules that such agencies make, and the legal relationships between such agencies, other government bodies, and the public at large. In forensic vocational rehabilitation, Social Security and worker’s compensation claims are adjudicated through administrative law.

Civil Litigation:

A legal dispute between two or more parties that seek money damages or specific performance rather than criminal sanctions. In forensic vocational rehabilitation, personal injury, wrongful death, and employment discrimination claims are adjudicated through administrative law.

Eligibility Standard:

Criteria by which an individual is assessed for entitlement for benefits or inclusion in a specific group or class.

Entitlement:

A right to benefits specified especially by law or contract; also a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group.

Forensic:

Relating to, used in, or suitable to a court of law.

Essential Job Functions:

Used in conjunction with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The basic job duties that an employee must be able to perform, with or without reasonable accommodation. Essential job functions are typically identified in a formal job description. Factors to consider in determining if a function is essential include:

• Whether the reason the position exists is to perform that function

• The number of other employees available to perform the function or among whom the performance of the function can be distributed

• The degree of expertise or skill required to perform the function

• The actual work experience of present or past employees in the job

• The time spent performing a function

• The consequences of not requiring that an employee perform a function

• The terms of a collective bargaining agreement

Labor Market Survey:

A report detailing the availability of jobs in a particular region or labor market typically related to a specific person. Labor market surveys typically include information about the numbers of jobs and employment rate in a specific region. Labor market surveys may include information about the exertion, skill level, duties, and essential functions of specific jobs they found through advertisements or job search websites.

Marginal Job Functions:

A marginal job function is a job duty which is relatively incidental to the reasons for the job existence. A marginal job function could be removed from a job position without changing the fundamental nature of the job. A marginal job function is a duty that could be easily reassigned to another worker without disruption to the job or work environment.

Maximum Medical Improvement:

MMI is defined as the point at which the injured worker’s medical condition has stabilized and further functional improvement is unlikely, despite continued medical treatment or physical rehabilitation. A treatment plateau in the patient’s recovery is reached and that is as good as the patient is going to get.

Learning Exercises

Self-Check Questions

• 1. What are the challenges facing rural forensic vocational rehabilitation practice?

• 2. What is the definition of forensic?

• 3. What is the difference between impairment of disability model and occupational disability model?

Experiential Exercise

• 1. Interview a forensic or vocational expert about the roles and function of his or her job.

• 2. Review the IARP Code of Ethics and compare/contrast it to another code of ethics (e.g., ACA, CRCC) to determine if there are competing points of interest.

• 3. Develop a paper of two to three pages on the importance of testing in forensic vocational disability assessment.

Multiple-Choice Questions

• 1. Which of the following cases is considered as the early case in which an expert witness was used as forensic testimony?

  • (a) Republica vs. Democratica

  • (b) Republica vs. Ross

  • (c) Democratica vs. Smith

  • (d) Smith vs. Ross

• 2. Which of the following best describes the options of workers when put in a position of a full-time job that will pay them a little more or even less than disability payments?

  • (a) Work part time and earn less

  • (b) Become disabled and retire

  • (c) Work for less and become disabled

  • (d) Become disabled and sue the employer

• 3. In rural areas, which of the following types of jobs pay more?

  • (a) Physically demanding

  • (b) Highway and roads

  • (c) Textile

  • (d) Recreation

• 4. Which of the following is a barrier of males residing in rural areas that need to transition from one occupation or industry to another?

  • (a) Inflexible gender role expectations

  • (b) Personal identity

  • (c) Earnings

  • (d) All of the above

  • (e) None of the above

• 5. Which of the following best describes the initial expectation of a rural resident that is referred for forensic vocational services?

  • (a) Believe he or she is being registered for disability payments

  • (b) Awareness of the purpose of the evaluation

  • (c) Expects to speak to a physician or psychologist about issues

  • (d) Aware of how long the evaluation process typically takes

• 6. Which of the following is the basis of services in forensic rehabilitation?

  • (a) Eligibility

  • (b) Entitlement

  • (c) Litigation

  • (d) Income

• 7. In which type of rehabilitation services are “order of selection” and severity of disability used to determine whether an individual will receive services?

  • (a) Proprietary

  • (b) Public

  • (c) Addictions

  • (d) Mental health

• 8. Which of the following is a vocational expert is asked to do in response to a claimant’s testimony?

  • (a) Respond to questions posed about a hypothetical individual’s ability to perform work based on specific limitations

  • (b) Respond to a claimant’s residual functional capacity

  • (c) Respond to a claimant’s request for an appeal

  • (d) Respond to questions posed by witnesses on behalf of the claimant

• 9. Which of the following describes the Social Security Disability standard for claimants in rural areas?

  • (a) The same standard is applied in rural areas as in urban and suburban areas

  • (b) Rural areas receive an exempt status

  • (c) Rural claimants need only to demonstrate that they can do work available in their local regional economy

  • (d) The standard for rural areas is determined by state law

• 10. Which of the following is a significant barrier of rural residents to relocate to urban areas?

  • (a) Type of disability

  • (b) Age of onset of disability

  • (c) Education attainment

  • (d) Social support

Key

• 1 B

• 2 C

• 3 A

• 4 D

• 5 C

• 6 B

• 7 B

• 8 A

• 9 A

• 10 D