An exam room at a clinic in Flint, Michigan. With a new rule, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeks to make it easier for people with disabilities to access exam tables, scales and other medical diagnostic equipment. (Jake May/MLive.com/TNS)
The new regulations will prohibit health care providers from making treatment decisions based on biases about disabilities and will require more accessible exam tables and other medical equipment to be available.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said this week that end a rule update and clarify how Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is implemented.
The regulation specifies that people with disabilities should not be denied medical treatment due to prejudice or stereotypes. Similarly, it states that ideas about the value of a person’s life or whether they might be a burden to others because of their disabilities have no place in determinations about organ transplants, life-sustaining care, crisis standards of care. or other type.
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Additionally, the rule adopts the U.S. Access Board’s standards for accessible medical diagnostic equipment and requires many medical providers to have at least one accessible exam table and scale within two years.
The standard also stipulates what providers must do to ensure that their websites and mobile applications are accessible to people with disabilities. And it prohibits the discriminatory use of valuation methods.
“Today’s rule is long overdue,” said Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights. “By removing barriers to health care and social services, this rule promotes justice for people with disabilities who for too long have been subject to discrimination. “No diagnosis should be missed due to an inaccessible mammogram, no patient should have questions about test results due to inaccessible websites, and no life should be valued less because of a disability.”
The rule applies to all programs and activities that receive funds from HHS, including child welfare agencies. It requires that services be provided in the most integrated environment possible.
Federal officials indicated that updating Section 504 will make it more consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Although Section 504 has long prohibited disability discrimination, HHS has acknowledged that “significant discrimination” has persisted in both the health care and child welfare systems. As a result, disability advocates have pushed for years to update regulations, citing concerns ranging from the proliferation of inaccessible medical equipment to problems accessing organ transplants and the rationing of health care in crisis situations.
Darcy Milburn, director of Social Security and health care policy at The Arc of the United States, called the new rule “a huge step forward in removing barriers in our health care system.”
“We have heard heartbreaking stories of discrimination in health care for too long,” she said. “This announcement came about thanks to decades of hard work by the disability community. We speak, we testify and we demand change. And today, Washington leaders listened.”
The new rule will take effect 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.
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