Am I allowed to opt out ADA privileges if my doctor allows it?

Question

I’m on ADA. My employer allowed me not to take the Covid vaccine and instead take weekly test for Covid as a reasonable accommodation.

I’m receiving a treatment, and my doctor says if it goes well, he might consider allowing me to take the vaccine. Maybe in the future. My doctor says, right now, I should NOT take the vaccine, but it the treatment is successful, he may reconsider.

Questions: If I hope, my treatment goes well, and my doctor reconsiders, then am I allowed to “Cancel my ADA”, and take the vaccine? Or is my ADA “non-cancellable, and I have to keep taking these weekly Covid tests, even if my doctor allows me to take the vaccine?

Answer 1

There's nothing to cancel. Your employer has made an exception for you, because of the ADA: you are not required to be vaccinated. That doesn't mean you can't be vaccinated. Once your doctor advises you that it's safe to be vaccinated, and once you are vaccinated, you no longer need the exception, but there's no need to cancel it.

As far as the weekly tests, they are required as an alternative measure because you aren't vaccinated. Once you are vaccinated, there should be no more need for weekly testing.

You may of course inform your employer that your doctor's advice changed that you were vaccinated, and that you therefore no longer require the accommodation that they offered. That should allow you to stop the weekly testing regime, but otherwise it should be the end of it, since at that point everyone should be satisfied.

Answer 2

An accommodation under the ADA is something that the employer and the employee agree on to allow the employee to work when otherwise the conditions of the job would make it impossible, dangerous, or unproductive for the employee.

The employer is required to offer a reasonable accommodation if one is requested and is possible without undue hardship to the employer. If several reasonable accommodations would serve the purpose, the employer may choose which to offer or accept.

If conditions change so that the accommodation is no longer needed or wanted, or a different accommodation is required, the employee should notify the employer of this, and ask for a different accommodation if one is needed.

There is no special form provided by the government to register, change, or end an accommodation. The employer may have forms for its own records. If so they will be designed and provided by the employer.

The employee is not required to continue using an accommodation that is no longer needed or wanted. In some cases there may even be a duty on the part of the employee to notify the employer and stop using an accommodation if it is no longer justified.

The EEOC emphasizes that the process of reaching (or modifying) an accommodation should be flexible and individual, responsive to the particular circumstances affecting a particular employee not rule-bound.

The employee has no obligation to notify the employer that a treatment might (or might not) in future allow the employee do cease using an agreed accommodation. Once a particular accommodation is in fact no longer needed, then the employee should notify the employer.