fbpx

Multiple Sclerosis: Employment & Disability

Guide your patients through workplace accommodations, retraining for a more flexible career, or preparing and applying for social security disability.

Three Part Series:

Part 1. Retraining & finding a career that accommodates symptoms

May 12, 2022

Part 2. Workplace diagnosis disclosure & requesting accommodations

May 19, 2022 

Part 3. Applying for Disability - how to prepare. When & how to apply

May 26, 2022 

Episode 10 • May 2022

Hosted by

CONTINUING EDUCATION​

If you are a mental health provider, we provide continuing education credits for listening. 

This Course is $50 and Awards 2.5 CE CREDITS

Find Empathy, owned and operated by Empathie, LLC, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Find Empathy maintains responsibility for all program content.

Show Notes

PODCAST SUMMARY​

Only 20% of persons with multiple sclerosis are still employed after 10 years following diagnosis. In a 2015 paper entitled “Multiple sclerosis, etiology symptoms, incidence, and prevalence and implications for community living and employment,” the researchers pointed to several reasons for the dramatic decrease in employment.

Some are obvious reasons – symptoms of the disease such as cognitive change, fatigue, or mobility challenge directly impact vocational performance.

However, many individuals with MS cite more subtle and difficult workplace barriers as reasons for leaving their jobs. Some of these include bias or outright prejudice on the part of management or coworkers, a lack of knowledge or access to workplace accommodations, or a lack of flexibility in accommodating changing MS symptoms and medical appointments.

This three-part podcast course will help you guide your patients through a tricky maze of employment issues – from the time they are diagnosed with MS to deciding to leave the workforce.

In the first part, we’ll look at ways to retrain or obtain a job that is flexible and can accommodate your patient’s problems – as well as how to assist your patients through their fear of trying something new.

In part two, we’ll discuss diagnosis disclosure in the workplace, as well as when and how to request accommodations with an MS specialty vocational counselor.

In part three, we’ll go over applying for SSDI disability benefits with a lawyer. She will walk you through the process as well as how to assist your patients in planning for an application and appeals procedure. She also explains how to help your patients obtain letters of support or prepare their medical records for evaluation.

This course will help you become more knowledgeable about the employment challenges that your patients with MS face, as well as give you some practical tools to assist them through these tough transitions.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES​

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

Download Extras

Episode Transcript

Coming May 26, 2022

Resource Page

Coming May 26, 2022

GUESTS / INSTRUCTORS

Kathy Reagan Young

MS patient advocate, blogger, and podcaster
Founder and CEO of Patients Getting Paid & FUMS

Joe Stuckey, MS, CRC

Rehabilitation Counselor
University of Washington Medical Center

Tracy Tyson Miller, Esq.

Social Security Disability Attorney

How to Obtain Continuing Education Credits with the Find Empathy Podcast

Most frequent questions and answers

Find Empathy, owned and operated by Empathie, LLC, is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Find Empathy maintains responsibility for all program content.

Applications Pending for ASWB and NBCC. 

To be alerted when continuing education is available for Master’s level mental health providers please provide your email and contact information here: Let me know when continuing education is available for me!

To obtain a certificate of completion for continuing education credits associated with this course, please follow the following steps:

Enroll in this course.
Create an Empathy account

LISTEN to the corresponding course podcast by streaming it on the webpage, downloading the audio file, listening on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or your favorite podcast provider. Alternatively, you can READ the podcast transcript, in its entirety. Or You can WATCH the podcast video on YouTube with subtitles.

Take the post-test assessment. Achieve a passing grade of at least 75%.
Complete the Course Evaluation.

Remember, full attendance is required for all CE activities. This means you will be asked to certify that you listened, watched, or read the entire podcast episode prior to completing the post-test assessment.

Once you have completed the above steps, your course certificate will automatically populate for download and will automatically be sent to the email linked to your account. It can be downloaded immediately and will be available for future download.

The primary format of the course is podcast.

This is a non-interactive distance-learning recorded audio continuing education course.

To ensure our course material is accessible, we also provide the content in video and written form. It will be available with all major podcast providers including, but not limited to, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, and more. You can also listen to the podcast via the player on our website or download it for free to your favorite digital device. You can read the podcast transcript by downloading the PDF in this course. You can watch the podcast in video.

Listening, reading, or watching the course content is free.

If you want continuing education credits, this course is $50 and provides 2.5 CE credits.

Course Access: Once enrolling in a course, you will have 30 days to complete the post-test and course evaluation. If your access lapses before completing all tasks, you will need to re-enroll.

Certificate Access: Once you have completed the post-test and program evaluation, your certificate will be immediately available for download. Access to the certificate will expire after 365 days. Find Empathy will keep course certificates on file for 7 years. If a certificate is needed, contact info@findempathy.com.

This course is intended for psychologists. It is also appropriate for mental health counselors, therapists, and social workers.

The instructional level is at the introductory and intermediate level.

It is absolutely critical that our program exemplifies accessibility for all participants.

We seek to ensure all participants are able to fully, equally, and independently access the educational content. Our goal is to have a website that is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. If you have any difficulty navigating the website, we want to know! Please contact us using the form below. While our educational offerings are primarily in podcast format, we are also providing a written transcript for each course. It will be available on the course landing page and available for download in PDF format. CE credits require a post-test assessment. The assessment is untimed and provided in writing on the course website. However, for individuals with visual impairments, or those that may benefit from an orally presented post-test and program evaluation, use the form below to contact us. We will work with you to find an alternative option for completing the course post-test and program evaluation. We remain available and open to ANY additional requests for format modification or additional assistance.

If any accommodations are needed to enroll or participate in the course, or complete the post-test and course evaluation, please contact us at info@findempathy.com.

There is no known commercial support or conflict of interest for this CE program, content, or instructor.

Contact us at info@findempathy.com. We will do our best to return your email within 24-48 hours during business hours:

Monday through Friday, 9am to 5pm eastern.

If you have any questions, concerns, or grievances please feel free to email us at info@findempathy.com.

You can also see our grievance policy at the following link: https://findempathy.com/grievance/

see our full list of courses.