Nadine Chang Dupré Discusses ADA Compliance and Third-Party Accommodation Administrators in SHRM Article
Nadine Chang Dupré, a San Diego-based attorney in Quarles & Brady’s Labor & Employment Practice Group, was quoted in a SHRM article that addressed a recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settlement that reinforced the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance principle that employers may outsource the administration of disability accommodation requests, but they cannot outsource legal responsibility for complying with the ADA.
Dupré stressed that third-party benefits administrators (TPA) can collect paperwork, communicate with employees and track accommodations, but the employer is ultimately responsible for compliance. She cautioned against allowing accommodation discussions to be handled solely by TPAs and managers.
An excerpt:
For HR professionals, the settlement raises a broader compliance question: How much of the ADA reasonable accommodation process should employers entrust to third-party administrators?
Using a TPA does not alter an employer’s underlying ADA obligations, according to Nadine Chang Dupré, of counsel at Quarles & Brady in San Diego. An outside administrator can handle much of the procedural work — such as receiving requests, following up with employees, obtaining medical paperwork and tracking accommodations — but “the employer is ultimately responsible for compliance,” she said.
TPAs can be valuable precisely because they take much of the administrative work off HR’s plate. But Chang Dupré cautioned that, like any outside service provider, they can have “their own hiccups, missteps, and miscommunications.”
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The same clarity is needed around communications with managers. A TPA may need information about a position’s essential functions to assess a proposed accommodation, but Chang Dupré cautioned against leaving those conversations entirely to an outside administrator without appropriate HR expertise.
“In my experience, a manager rarely understands the employer’s obligations under the ADA and certainly not what constitutes a ‘reasonable accommodation’ or an ‘undue hardship,’” she said.