Accommodations and FMLA — the mechanics that make staying at work enforceable

Our article on staying in work covers when to tell people and which adjustments help. This page is the other half: the procedure that turns a helpful conversation into something with legal weight, and the deadlines that quietly close the door if you wait.

Two federal laws do different jobs.

• The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) changes the job so you can keep doing it.
• The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) protects time away from the job.

They run alongside each other. Using one does not use up the other, and with a fluctuating condition you will probably want both. Everything here was checked against EEOC and Department of Labor pages in August 2026.

Asking for an accommodation: fewer formalities than you think

The most common reason people delay is a belief that there is a correct form of words. There is not. The EEOC’s guidance is explicit on all three points:

• No special language is required. You can use plain English, and you “need not mention the ADA or use the phrase ‘reasonable accommodation’.” A statement linking a workplace need to a medical condition is enough.
• Written requests are not mandatory. An accommodation may be requested in conversation, or through any mode of communication.
• Someone else can ask for you. A family member, a friend, a health professional or a representative may request on your behalf.

Write it down anyway. Not because the law requires it, but because a dated email creates a record of when the employer knew, which is the fact everything later turns on. Send the email, keep a copy outside work systems, and note the date.

The interactive process, and its limits on both sides

Once you ask, the employer and you are expected to “engage in an informal process to clarify what the individual needs and identify the appropriate reasonable accommodation.” Neither side has to be formal about it — a conversation counts.

The employer is allowed to ask questions about the nature of the disability, your functional limitations, the specific barriers at work, and what might solve them. Where documentation is not obvious, it may request “reasonable documentation” — enough to establish that an ADA disability exists and why the accommodation is needed, from an appropriate health professional.

What it may not do is demand your complete medical records, or information unrelated to the specific disability behind the request. That boundary is worth knowing before the meeting, because the request for “everything from your neurologist” is common and is not the standard.

And there is a clock on the employer’s side too. It must respond “expeditiously”; unnecessary delay in providing an accommodation is itself an ADA violation. If weeks pass with nothing, a polite written follow-up that references the original date is doing real work.

The accommodations people forget to ask for

Equipment and flexible hours are the familiar ones. Three categories in the EEOC guidance get asked for far less often and matter more as Parkinson’s progresses.

Leave as an accommodation. Paid or unpaid time off counts as a reasonable accommodation — for medical treatment, for recuperation, and even for things like repairs to an assistive device. This is separate from FMLA, and it can apply when FMLA has run out or when you were never eligible for it.

Modification of workplace policies. Attendance rules, break procedures and similar policies can themselves be adjusted. For someone whose off periods are unpredictable, a modified attendance or start-time policy is often more useful than any piece of equipment.

Job restructuring. An employer can reallocate the marginal functions of a job — the parts that are not essential to it — while you keep doing the essential ones. Identifying which of your tasks are genuinely marginal is a very effective and very underused move.

Reassignment. Where no accommodation lets you perform the essential functions of your current role, transfer to a vacant position becomes the accommodation of last resort. You must be qualified for the new role, the employer need not train you into it, and equivalent positions are considered before lower-level ones. Reassignment “does not include giving an employee a promotion.”

The only limit on all of this is undue hardship — “significant difficulty or expense,” judged against the employer’s resources, case by case.

Free specialist help exists on the wording of a request. The Job Accommodation Network (1-800-526-7234, askjan.org) advises both employees and employers at no cost, and publishes a page specifically on Parkinson’s. Two things it says there are worth carrying into any conversation with an employer. First, on whether you are covered at all: “the ADA does not contain a definitive list of medical conditions that constitute disabilities,” and instead defines a person with a disability as someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, has a record of such an impairment, or is regarded as having one. Second, on scale: people with Parkinson’s “may develop some of the limitations discussed below, but seldom develop all of them,” and many “may only need a few accommodations.” Your request does not have to be comprehensive to be legitimate.

FMLA: three eligibility tests, all of which must pass

FMLA gives eligible employees up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave a year, requires group health benefits to be maintained during the leave “as if employees continued to work,” and entitles you “to return to their same or an equivalent job at the end of their FMLA leave.”

You are eligible only if all three hold:

One trap inside the hours test: “the 1,250 hours include only those hours actually worked. Paid leave and unpaid leave, including FMLA leave, are not included.” Someone who has already taken a lot of sick leave this year may fall below the line just when they need FMLA most — worth checking before you assume.

Parkinson’s is a chronic serious health condition

FMLA covers a “serious health condition,” and the Department of Labor’s definition of the chronic variety reads as though it were written for this:

The regulations continue to define a chronic serious health condition as one that (1) requires “periodic visits” for treatment by a health care provider or nurse under the supervision of the health care provider, (2) continues over an extended period of time, and (3) may cause episodic rather than continuing periods of incapacity.

“Periodic visits” is defined as at least twice a year. Regular neurology follow-up satisfies it. “Episodic rather than continuing” is a fair description of motor fluctuations.

That matters because of what it unlocks.

Intermittent and reduced-schedule leave

This is the FMLA feature built for conditions that come and go, and most people have never heard of it.

When it is medically necessary, employees may take FMLA leave intermittently – taking leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason – or on a reduced leave schedule – reducing the employee’s usual weekly or daily work schedule.

In practice that can mean a few hours on a bad morning, a half-day for therapy each week, or a four-day week for a period — all counted against the same 12-week entitlement, all job-protected.

Three conditions attach.

• Schedule planned treatment considerately. For foreseeable treatment you must “make a reasonable effort to schedule treatment so as not to unduly disrupt the employer’s operation,” subject to your provider’s approval.
• You may be temporarily transferred. For foreseeable intermittent leave, the employer “may transfer the employee temporarily to an alternative job with equivalent pay and benefits” that accommodates recurring absences better. Equivalent pay and benefits is the protection; check it.
• Follow the call-in procedure. Unforeseeable leave still requires you to notify the employer the way its policy says. DOL’s own example is an employee with a certification on file for chronic migraines who cannot start his shift, follows the absence call-in procedure, and has therefore given appropriate notice. Do the same and the leave is protected.

Certification: what you must provide, and what you never have to

The employer may require a certification from a health care provider. The Department of Labor publishes an optional model form, WH-380-E, which “asks the health care provider for the information necessary for a complete and sufficient medical certification” — using it is not compulsory, but it keeps the request inside the legal boundaries. The form itself reminds employers that they “may not ask the employee to provide more information than allowed under the FMLA regulations.”

Your side. The employer must allow you at least 15 calendar days to obtain it. If it is incomplete, the employer “must state in writing what additional information is necessary” and give you at least seven calendar days to fix it. If you never provide a sufficient certification, the leave may be denied — so this is the deadline to take seriously.

Their side. These four limits are the ones people do not know:

• You are not required to give the employer your medical records. The employer’s right is to a certification containing sufficient medical facts, not to the file.
• You cannot be required to sign a release or waiver as part of the certification process. Completing any such authorization “is at the employee’s discretion.”
• Your direct supervisor may never contact your health care provider. Authentication or clarification must go through a different person — a health professional, HR, a leave administrator or another management official.
• A second or third opinion is at the employer’s expense, not yours.

One more thing the form states, which is useful to be able to point at: employers “must generally maintain records and documents relating to medical information, medical certifications, recertifications, or medical histories of employees created for FMLA purposes as confidential medical records in separate files/records from the usual personnel files.” Your diagnosis does not belong in your personnel file.

Recertification is also limited. Generally no more often than every 30 days; for a condition certified as lasting more than 30 days, not until that period has passed; and in all cases the employer may ask every six months. For conditions lasting longer than a year, a new certification may be required each leave year.

Returning to work. An employer may require a fitness-for-duty certification, applied uniformly, and may require it to address your ability to perform the essential functions of the job — but only if it told you in advance and gave you a list of those functions. On intermittent leave, this can be required up to once every 30 days where there are reasonable safety concerns.

Deadlines that end a claim

This is the part where waiting is fatal.

ADA — the EEOC charge. You generally have 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place. That is “extended to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination on the same basis” — which most states do, but do not assume it. In harassment cases the clock runs from the last incident. Federal employees have a much shorter deadline: contact an agency EEO Counselor within 45 days.

You can start online through the EEOC Public Portal, in person at one of its offices, or by calling 1-800-669-4000 to discuss the situation — though charges are not taken over the phone.

FMLA — the Wage and Hour Division. Complaints go to WHD on 1-866-487-9243. Employers are prohibited from “interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of FMLA rights” and from retaliating against you for complaining. If retaliation happens, DOL’s advice is to contact WHD immediately.

Two things beyond federal law

FMLA is unpaid, and federal law is a floor rather than a ceiling. The Department of Labor’s own instruction is to “check with your State Labor Department to determine if you have additional or greater protections under state law.” A number of states run their own paid family and medical leave insurance programs with different eligibility rules. Ask your state labor department what applies where you actually work — this is one of the areas where the state answer matters more than the federal one.

Watch the earnings line if you are also claiming disability. If you are receiving or applying for SSDI, income above the substantial gainful activity level can end the claim regardless of your medical evidence. Our page on what listing 11.06 actually asks for has the current figure.

The order to do things in

If this applies to you

This page explains federal law and is not legal advice. State laws often give broader rights, including paid leave and coverage of smaller employers. If a deadline is close or a job is at risk, speak to an employment lawyer or your state fair employment agency straight away.