The interactive process under the Rehabilitation Act — requesting changes to your duties without ending your career.
Under the Rehabilitation Act, federal agencies must provide reasonable accommodation to qualified employees with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. Accommodation can include modified schedules, telework, reassignment to a vacant position, equipment, or restructuring of non-essential functions.
The interactive process is a two-way conversation, but what you document — every request, every response, the medical documentation supporting your need — is what creates a record that protects you if accommodation is denied or if you later need to show your agency could not accommodate you.
Rehabilitation Act
Mandates the interactive accommodation process
Interactive Process
Request → discussion → documentation → decision
Reassignment
To a vacant position at the same grade if needed
Leave as Accommodation
Protected leave beyond FMLA
Federal benefits do not operate in isolation. The same facts can matter across multiple programs.
A documented accommodation history is what your agency must certify it cannot provide before disability retirement is on the table.
Accommodation and FMLA work together — leave beyond 12 weeks can itself be a reasonable accommodation.
If accommodation is denied and you cannot perform useful and efficient service, the documented denial strengthens a disability retirement application.
Put every request in writing with dates — verbal requests are hard to prove later.
A denial must be based on a specific finding (undue hardship or inability to perform essential functions), not preference.
Medical documentation should describe functional limitations and how they affect specific duties — not conclusions.