subject: The State Of Pre-employment Physical Exams [print this page] The law protects the rights of various employees, whatever industry they may be. If the employer already handles fifteen and above number of employees, then it is already covered by the federal law when it comes to disability discrimination. This indicates that the employer cannot anymore require job applicants to undergo physical, medical and even drug tests.
If you want to make sure that you get healthy and drug free employees, you first have to offer the job applicant the position before you require him or her to take the necessary medical examinations. This protects the right of the applicants. They cannot be rejected a job position just because they have allergies or medical history of some disease. A healthy individual and a person with medical history, putting all things equal, can both perform the task at hand, except in some obvious circumstances when physical health is essential to the job.
A note to employers: never reject an employee after finding about his or her medical history. You can be facing various counts of lawsuits if you are not careful. As long as the disability of the applicant does not harm the business, welcome the new employee into your company.
Another thing to consider is that the pre-employment medical exam should always be in relation to the job requirement being applied for. Asking a person lift 80 pounds will not indicate that she will become a good receptionist. You can ask this for a parcel delivery job but for a receptionist, it is unnecessary.
The result of the pre-employment physical should not be considered as a public document. In fact it should be treated with great confidentiality. The file should be separated from the regular file of the office personnel. It should only be accessible by medical practitioners including the companys doctor and the employees personal physician.
If you want to know more about pre-employment medical exam, there are websites that can help you. Healthcare sites found all over the internet provide intensive information regarding the topic. Consult with your states law if you can require your applicants to undergo the physical exam or not before you implement it to avoid lawsuits.
