The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The proposed rule Promotes Nondiscrimination in Health Care and Human Services for Persons with Disabilities and, when finalized, will mark an incredible advancement in disability civil rights.
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is a law that prevents discrimination based on disability by entities that receive federal funding. Click here to read the key elements included in the proposed rule expanding Section 504:
• Prohibiting disability discrimination in medical care and treatment, prohibiting discrimination based on biases or stereotypes about individuals with disabilities, judgments that an individual will be a burden on others or beliefs that the life of an individual with a disability has less value than the life of a person without a disability.
• Prohibiting disability discrimination in value assessments used to determine appropriate prices for healthcare goods and services and under what circumstances they will be offered to the public.
• Ensuring digital accessibility for web, mobile app, and informational kiosks in medical settings
• Adopting the recently announced US Access Board Accessible Diagnostic Medical Equipment Standards and requiring compliance with these standards within 2 years of the rule’s finalization
• Applying Section 504’s integration mandate to all recipients of federal funding, including hospital systems
• Prohibiting discrimination based on disability against adults and children within the child welfare system
• Reinforcing multiple standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act, including for service animals and mobility devices.
