Scope of Practice

The specific techniques and practice behaviors within disability management may include, but are not limited to:

• Disability Case Management

• Disability Prevention and Workplace Intervention

• Program Development, Management, and Evaluation

Practice Characteristics

The delivery of disability management services involves a complex interplay among workers with disabilities, employers, insurance carriers, labor unions, medical service providers, government agencies, and others.

• A major goal of disability management is to facilitate the worker’s physical recovery, rehabilitation and return-to-work process while, concurrently, controlling the escalating costs of injury and disability for employers, insurance carriers and government.

• Within this context of competing interests, the disability management specialist must function in an objective and ethical fashion.

• The disability management specialist must maintain a balance between providing services and interventions that protect jobs for workers with disabilities while controlling the financial, safety and other risks that confront employers.

Ethical Issues

Those involved in the practice of disability management may face ethical dilemmas surrounding client rights, payor interpretation of state regulations, and individual state laws.

Each certified professional participating in the practice of disability management must abide by the Code of Professional Conduct of the Certification of Disability Management Specialists Commission. In addition, the certified professional must also adhere to any other professional codes of conduct to which the certificant is bound for guidance and support in evaluating and determining how to approach ethical conflicts.

Certificants shall practice only within the boundaries of their competence, based on their education, training, appropriate professional experience, and other professional credentials. They shall not misrepresent their role or competence to clients.