Photo: Accessibility Experts

The Accessibility of Ontarians with Disabilities Act Ontario was recently updated with new regulations for persons. There is a push to ensure this Act is slated to be fully-accessible throughout Ontario by 2025. It was created as “An Act to improve the identification, removal and prevention of barriers faced by persons with disabilities and to make related amendments to other Acts”. One in seven people in Ontario have a disability. Over the next 20 years, that number will rise as the population ages.

There are five phases:

1. Customer Services Standard

2. Communications and Technology

3. Employment

4. Transportation

5. Built-Environment

The Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services is responsible for implementing this Act through its numerous services, which include accessibility for Ontarians with disabilities, complying with the accessibility standards for customer service, community services, family responsibility office, services for people with a developmental disability, Ontario disability support program, and financial and employment support.

Employers non compliant with regulations can face up to $100,000 fines for not providing services to all people, including those with disabilities.

Many individuals and companies are now offering consulting services on accessibility matters including compliance with the requirements of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the standards. Currently, employees throughout Ontario (or companies that have offices in Ontario) are required to take an online training course of 45 minutes followed by a short quiz to ensure competence.

After a 70-year-old hunter shot him in the foot, an Ottawa father of two finds he doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to settling a disability claim. He’s now reaching out to lawyers to recover what little he can.

Earlier this year, Andrew Duffy of the Ottawa Citizen told Allard’s story: In September 2010 Jean-François Allard was loading catalogues into the front seat of his car in a Gatineau, Quebec parking lot when he heard an explosion, then felt sudden pressure against his left leg.  When he looked down, he saw blood everywhere.

“My life has been forever altered”

Police later told Allard that a man in the vehicle next to him had accidentally discharged a hunting rifle from the back seat. The man was “…apparently taking the rifle’s torn leather case to a cobbler to have it repaired.”

That’s when Allard’s real pain set in: the struggle of recovering from, and receiving compensation for, his shattered leg and life:

• Seven surgeries to repair the leg including knee surgery, skin and bone grafts, and an implant
• Three weeks in hospital, four months in bed, and ongoing rehabilitation
• More than $20,000 on physiotherapists
• The unnamed gun owner’s hunting insurance won’t compensate Allard because the gun was not fired while hunting
• The gun owner’s auto insurance won’t compensate Allard because the vehicle had nothing to do with the incident
• The gun owner’s Quebec victims agency won’t compensate Allard because Allard doesn’t live in Quebec
• Allard’s Ontario victims agency won’t compensate him because the incident happened in Quebec
• Allard’s Ontario workers’ compensation plan doesn’t cover him because he is self-employed

“It’s always ‘claim denied, claim denied, claim denied’ everywhere I turn,” says Allard. “All claims have been denied, yet my life has been forever altered by a senseless act of criminal negligence.”

And to add insult to injury, writes Duffy, “Allard’s lawyers tell him his best hope now is to launch a civil lawsuit, but the man who shot him seems to have few assets. He lives in a rented apartment and drives an older-model car.”

What will he do next? What would you do? At times like these, we all need an insurance law expert.

If you have been denied an inter-provincial disability claim, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

VIDEO LINK: http://www.cbc.ca/marketplace/2012/trippedup/

Confusion on Medical Questions Results in Denied Claims

Attention snowbirds, backpackers, and other travellers: if the cooling weather is turning your thoughts to warmer locales, scrutinize your travel health insurance policy. Your answer to a qualifying question on the medical check-list could give an insurance company an excuse to deny your claim.

Just ask Bill and Tracy Jennings. They bought travel  insurance from Manulife for their Florida getaway and trusted that they were covered when Bill was rushed to hospital for an emergency heart operation. As they told CBC’s Marketplace in an investigative piece on travel insurance, six months after their return, Manulife told them their claim for the medical expenses was denied. They would not be repaid the $346,000 they paid while in the USA.

According to the Marketplace report, insurance companies can compare the answers you provide in the qualifying questionnaire to your doctor’s records. Manulife told Bill he hadn’t provided accurate-enough information about documented, pre-existing medical conditions.

A person can make mistakes

“But the questions on the questionnaire set people up to fail,” suggests Susan Eng of CARP, a non-profit advocacy group. “A person can make mistakes on a form that they could not possibly have done correctly. It takes both a doctor and a lawyer to interpret the form properly.”

According to a related CBC news story, “…of the 500,000 travel insurance claims made every year, 15,000 are denied for a variety of reasons.”

Says Eng, “Ordinary people are out thousands and thousands of dollars because they did not get the protection they thought they had—only because they made a mistake on the form that they could not possibly have done correctly.”

To learn more, watch “Tripped Up”, a CBC Marketplace investigation on how average Canadians’ travel insurance claims are denied when they become sick, injured, or disabled while vacationing in another country.

If you have been denied a disability claim related to travel, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

“Video evidence is a lot like nitroglycerin,” writes James Careless in an article for attorney members of the Canadian Bar Association. “Properly handled, it can demolish an opposing counsel’s case. Carelessly managed, it can blow up in your face.”

Valerie Royle and her “fraud squad” at the Yukon Workers’ Compensation Health and Safety Board (YWCHSB) got a fresh lesson on that recently. The winners? Claimants like you.

In 2007, Royle hired a fraud investigator to smoke out workers she suspected was illegally collecting millions of dollars in disability claim payments. Using video surveillance and other techniques, the investigator identified six individuals who the YWCHSB believed were making false claims.

Claimants filmed bragging in bars

“In most cases, the illegal claimants were living outside the Yukon,” reported CBC News North in a September 2008 story. Claimants were bragging in bars, running heavy-equipment businesses, and even playing on sports teams—after they’d claimed that they were “totally disabled.”

However, this summer an appeal tribunal rejected the YWCHSB fraud investigator’s allegations—for the second time. That’s good news for the claimants, and bad news for the fraud squad.

In one case, an investigator collected video surveillance that showed the claimant apparently mowing the lawn, shopping, and taking out the garbage at his new Vancouver-area home. He been been injured in a 1991 gas explosion near Watson Lake, Yukon. In 2010 he was still collecting full benefits—until the Board reviewed the results of the surveillance and terminated his benefits.

He appealed the decision, and won. He will receive full benefits that will be restored retroactively.

Video evidence can be inadmissible

“No matter how good it is, video evidence is inadmissible if it cannot be shown to be relevant to the case at hand,” writes Careless in his Video Evidence article. He argues that a court can exclude evidence such as video surveillance if it deems the footage is “… irrelevant, inaccurate, unfair, unauthenticated, and prejudicial.”

Like worker compensation boards, insurance companies may use video surveillance to monitor the authenticity of claims made by hard-working people like you. It shouldn’t stand in the way of your disability claim.

If you have been denied a disability claim because of video evidence, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

Doctors care about us and try to do the best they can. But sometimes, as in the case of an Ontario rehabilitation physician, they can drown in their own paperwork. And that can affect the speed and success of a disability claim. Your disability claim.

As a physiatrist, Emilie Newell specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation (also known as PM&R). She has helped patients with disabilities and impairments that result from injuries or disease, and she has helped them regain movement through physical, occupational, speech, and other therapies.

She brought years of passion to her London, Ontario practice and worked with community organizations such as the Paralympics, the Ontario Wheelchair Sports Association, and the Brain Injury Association of Ontario since 1973.

Unfortunately, Dr. Newell arguably suffered a type of impairment herself: procrastination.

Delayed Records Could Delay Insurance Claims

As Jonathan Sher wrote in the London Free Press last week, “Newell was not filling out some patient charts, waiting up to a year after seeing a patient to jot down notes and not filing reports some patients needed for insurance claims”.

“In some cases,” according to the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons disciplinary committee, “the lack of timeliness resulted in the loss of disability benefits for the patients. The expert also concluded that the lack of timely records could result in delay in the diagnosis and treatment of patients, to their detriment”.

Newell is scheduled to face a disciplinary hearing in Toronto this month. In the meantime, community response has been empathetic, but only to a point.

Is Your Doctor Irresponsible?

“If Dr. Newell was not writing out patient charts in a timely fashion (a year later) and causing patients to lose their CPP Disability benefits, this is very serious,” commented one reader of the Free Press. “It doesn’t matter how kind, gentle and compassionate she is. She is irresponsible toward those who depend on her the most. How can she remember what someone said to her a few months ago, let alone a year ago? Such things matter greatly to a patient’s care and certainly their recovery or in some cases just their daily living…what else is she neglecting?”

When your disability claim is denied, there may be factors that you cannot control, such as your doctor’s record-keeping habits. Is your claim compromised if you doctor won’t complete the paperwork? Ask Dr. Newell’s patients.

If you have been denied a disability claim, don’t put off getting a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729. 

September 23 to 29 is Active Aging Week, and we think that’s something to celebrate. After all, with their growing personal interest in accessibility, Canada’s aging boomers are smoothing the path for people living with disabilities.

Here’s an interesting coincidence: in 2006 Statistics Canada found that almost 14 percent of the population—about 5 million baby boomers—was 65 years or older. In that same year, about 14 percent of the population self-identified as disabled.

According to a story about aging baby boomers in the National Post, as people born between 1946 and 1965 enter their senior years, some “profound and controversial” issues are coming to light regarding their increasing health needs.

Our cities needs “retrofitting”

“We really didn’t design cities for the elderly,” says Elaine Gallagher, director of the University of Victoria’s Centre on Aging. “We designed them for able-bodied people, 35-year-old engineers who bicycle to work. A good deal of retrofitting is going to be needed.”

And that’s good news if you’re not able-bodied, or if you feel handicapped—by bad design.

Universal design, on the other hand, “makes things more accessible, safer, and convenient for everyone.” Says the Centre for Inclusive Design and Accessibility, “…it is a philosophy that developed in response to the diversity of human populations, their abilities and their needs.”

A good place to start is right at home

For example, about 10 million existing homes will need renovations to suit the increasing number of baby boomers who will want a more accessible, more fashion-forward place to live.

Writes Misty Harris of Postmedia News, “…a shift toward universal design means such renovations no longer require the clinical, bolt-on solutions of the past but rather allow sleek, sexy additions that look more Architectural Digest than Prevention.”

“Not many baby boomers want to have an ugly stainless steel grab-bar in the beautiful, $30,000 bathroom they’ve just redone,” agrees Colin Milner, of the International Council on Active Aging. And as a representative from Kohler Canada puts it, “Baby boomers know what’s possible so they tend to demand more.”

It’s challenging to “demand more” if you are struggling with a disability, so it’s nice to know there’s a big, loud, active population of boomers out there doing some of the heavy lifting for you.

If you have been denied a disability claim, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

For some, September is not a rosy, red-apple time. It’s a battle between our determination to get back to school, and the everyday challenges that impede it. Thank heavens for resources like NEADS.

What is NEADS?

Based out of Carleton University in Ottawa, the National Educational Association of Disabled Students (NEADS) is a national consumer organization that encourages post-secondary students with disabilities to gain equal access to college or university education. NEADS provides bilingual information on services and programs, publishes a regular newsletter, and conducts research. Members include disabled students, educators, organizations and professional service providers.

5 ways NEADS can help you get back to school:

1. Financial aid. With a login to DisabilityAwards.ca, you can access information about awards, scholarships and grants according to your eligibility. You can perform searches, save awards information, and receive notifications of new awards such as the National Student Awards Program and the Holly Bartlett Memorial Award.
2. High School Transition. A guide just for students who are preparing for post-secondary education, the High School Outreach Project shares information about support, funding, and other services. It answers frequently-asked questions and shares student success stories, too.
3. Disability services on campuses. EdLink is a national directory of college and university disability service providers.  You can search by province and type of institutions, and the resulting links access details on accommodation, physical access, services and support.
4. Post-secondary peer support. Events such as the Mad Students Society’s “Psyching up for School” workshop brings students with mental health disabilities together to share resources on the logistics of acquiring documentation, monitoring medications, and other school-related tasks.
5. Useful, all-purpose answers. Unlike the marketing info on most Web sites, the frequently-asked questions from students with disabilities on the NEADS Web site has real-world usefulness. For example,

• How do I find out if a group of students with disabilities exists on my campus?
• How do I make arrangements for books in Braille, on tape or diskette?
• What accommodations are usually in place for students with disabilities attending college and university?

To learn more about NEADS, visit their Website at www.neads.ca. There you’ll also find a calendar of upcoming events, employment resources, a discussion forum, and information about Adaptech’s free and inexpensive software for students with disabilities.

If you have been denied a disability claim as a student, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

Attention farmers, horse racers, veterinarians, butchers, and tourism operators: if you suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), you may successfully file a claim with an organization such as British Columbia’s WorkSafeBC.

But at what price?

Back in January 2011, the general manager for a Whistler, BC, dog-sledding company did just. When business waned after the nearby Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, the owners of Howling Dog Tours Whistler Inc. directed Robert Fawcett to “put down” the company’s “herd” of mostly-healthy dogs.

In the past, reported Fawcett in his disability claim hearing, he would lead an old, injured or ill dog into the forest; feed it a meat meal, and point a gun at its head.

But in the spring of 2010, he was required to kill almost 70 dogs within sight and smell of other dogs. He had to chase them, shoot them, and—in some cases—slit their throats. Some dogs required multiple shots because they attempted to crawl out of their mass grave.

The scene is a grisly one to hear described, and we can only imagine the horror Fawcett experienced as—one-by-one—he exterminated animals that he had lovingly raised from pups.

Claim became a media frenzy

In a WorkSafeBC review decision, the unfortunate details of Fawcett’s disturbing experience are itemized as a part of his disability claim due to PTSD. His claim was approved, but the seven-page report quickly gained the attention of international media for months to follow.

This week, Fawcett is in the news again. After the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals investigated the dogs’ grave, they pressed charges against the traumatized Fawcett. He pleaded guilty to a criminal charge of causing unnecessary pain and suffering to animals.

Coincidentally, in January 2012, WorkSafeBC published related research on PTSD. The report describes PTSD as “…a clinical condition that may develop following exposure to a traumatic event” and continues that “PTSD can be triggered by traumatic workplace events including robbery, assault, or injury. “

At first pass it’s easy to condemn Fawcett, but like many disabling events, the causes and effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can be complex. If you work with animals and other living creatures, even more so.

If you have been denied a disability claim due to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

This is the story of Bert and Jon. Both live in British Columbia, both are pretty outraged with ICBC, and both—we would suggest—are living with a disability.

Who's angrier at ICBC--the overpaid CEO or the injured client whose claim was denied?

Jon Schubert works for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) as its Chief Executive Officer. He must have been doing a pretty good job last year because ICBC paid him over $485,000 in wages, perks, and bonuses. Schubert is outraged because a BC government audit ordered his company, ICBC, to cut costs.

According to the Victoria Times Colonist, the audit found that:

• The number of senior managers increased 41 percent from 2007 to 2011
• The number of ICBC staff earning more than $200,00 a year increased 315 percent between 2006 and 2011
• New managers enjoyed pay increases of 50 percent

In fact, Jon Schubert is so outraged that he quit his job as CEO. He will stick it out until November of this year, but then he’ll only agree to stay on as an ICBC consultant until June of 2013. He’ll continue to receive his full salary until then.

Bert MacBain lives in the village of Brentwood Bay, BC. He’s the father of a disabled adult son and both he and his son pay ICBC premiums.

MacBain is outraged because when his son asked for a settlement to help pay for rehabilitative therapy after being hit from behind in a vehicle, the managers and decision-makers at ICBC flatly said no.

MacBain was so outraged that he wrote a letter to the Times Colonist to complain about the “…huge salaries and generous perks enjoyed by the head honchos at ICBC.”

“How,” asks MacBain in his letter, “are those ICBC managers able to sleep at night?”

The Handicap is Obvious

To us, the answer is obvious: they don’t. The 23 sleep-deprived ICBC vice-presidents clearly have very large disabilities for which they must be paid very large compensation. That fatly-paid posse of managers is draining the ICBC kitty of any funds that might be otherwise available to paying ICBC clients with far lessor needs.

Like MacBain, and his disabled son with the whiplash. Like me. Like you.

If you have been denied a disability claim due to whiplash, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.

Pity the employer. It’s a beautiful summer’s day and—as a manager of a public or private sector workforce—a manager must grapple with increasing absenteeism. And according to Statistics Canada, an employee who is absent due to disability may require some management.

What is disability management and absenteeism?

Disability management is “…a deliberate and coordinated effort by employers to reduce the occurrence and effect of illness and injury on workforce productivity, and to promote employee attachment,” according to the Government of Canada Treasury Board of Secretariat.

Absenteeism, according to Stats Can report writers, refers to “absences that are avoidable, habitual and unscheduled.” The writers describe the absences as “disruptive to proper work scheduling and output,” “costly to organizations and the economy as a whole,” and annoyingly not easy to quantify because “the dividing line between avoidable and unavoidable is difficult to draw, and absenteeism generally masquerades as legitimate absence.”

Who is missing work and why?

Workplace absenteeism is way up, reports media such as CBC news, and the numbers indicate that more people are not coming to work. Government staff miss 4.5 times more work than their counterparts in the private sector, parents miss more work than non-child households, and women miss more work than men. Reasons for missing work include family issues, stress, and—if you want to believe the research of the University of Waterloo’s Mikal Skutefud—the irresistible environmental conditions of a perfect summer’s day.

But the most compelling statistic is that while employees are absent roughly 9 days per year, they lose almost eight of those days to illness or disability. This has employers concerned, of course, because it draws on the resources known as long-term disability benefits. How are employers managing you, your disability, and your lost days? By bringing in the absentee-fighting tactics of the disability managers, of course.

If you have been denied a disability claim due to absence, get a second opinion. For a free lawyer referral, call toll-free at 1-855-843-9729.