Return to Work After Psychiatric Leave: Fitness for Duty

Stephan M. Carlson, MD, MBA, FAPA · Employment and Fitness

Short answer: a return-to-work fitness for duty evaluation should tie current symptoms to essential job functions, identify accommodations that would restore performance, and separate risk from discomfort. A return-to-work opinion is not a discharge summary with a job title attached. The employer is not asking whether the employee is well; it is asking whether this person can safely perform these specific duties, and that is a functional question the treating relationship rarely answers cleanly. What the employer is actually entitled to ask A fitness-for-duty evaluation after psychiatric leave lives at the intersection of disability law and occupational risk, and the governing standards cons

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