3. Work with your doctor/allergist to get the medical documentation that will be needed to set up a 504 Plan.
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This thread contains ideas about what should be included in a doctor letter supporting 504 eligibility:
Asked for 504 Evaluation: What should my Dr. letter (documentation) say?There are several letter examples that can be customized to your own needs. Everybody's medical history and sensitivity will be different. Some people may have unique allergy management challenges.
If your child has another medical condition like asthma, you may want to have an eligibility letter that supports eligibility for both conditions (FA and asthma) so that they can be handled together in the same 504 Plan. If your child has ADHD, you might want to consider whether that condition complicates allergy management because of issues such as impulse control and distractibility.
If your child has a "non top 8" allergy, the 504 "major life activity" of "caring for oneself" may be affected because of inadequate food labeling. My opinion is that the vast majority of young children would be unable to understand the relevant labeling regulations sufficiently in order to determine if a food product is safe.
_____________________________________________________________________***UPDATE*** ADA/other Federal laws require the administration of Epi-pens?I called my Dr. for a 504 letter to get things going. The office said it didn't have any idea what that was. I am scared now.
Don't worry-- many physicians do not know much about ADA. They're doctors, not lawyers, right?
You might want to prepare a short dossier of information
_____________________________________________________________________Working together as a partner with your doctor/allergist through this process can sometimes be more difficult than originally anticipated.
This thread shows that I am extremely imperfect (borrowing those words from another FASer
), but I'm sharing it because I think our collective experiences might help the process go more smoothly for others:
The dance: School letters/forms & docs/allergists_____________________________________________________________________Schools often request permission to speak directly with the allergist. Many of us at FAS don't think that this is a good idea.
Question--WWYDWe've (FAS and at previous pa dot com) had lots of discussions about giving carte blanche (which IS what a permission to "talk to allergist" permission is ) . . . AND how important it is to NOT give that sort of access to the medical provider for child.
Many accounts through the years as to schools fishing for info to use against parents, info to use to attempt to refute the parents' requests for necessary and appropriate accommodations, and instances of damaging of parent/patient/doctor relationships.
How much weight does letter from allergist hold in 504 planning?Schools have an unfortunate tendency to cut parents out of the loop once they have access to the doctor, and they often agree (between the two of them) to things that PARENTS, being experts in daily tactical management, would KNOW cannot work.
Secondarily, who is compensating the physician for his/her TIME in all this phone and fax and e-mail time with the school, hmmm? Is it the school? You? Not cool-- s/he's YOUR physician, and needs to be acting in his/her PATIENT's best interests.
_____________________________________________________________________Sometimes an allergist "accommodation recommendation letter" may be requested by the school.
UPDATE crunch time with our 504-Need advice/opinionsThe 504 team insisted on recommendations from our allergist, so we did meet with her. We reviewed what we were looking for and she was in agreement with all of our points. She typed out a "letter" with her recommendations (aka our recommendations) as bullet points.
Generally, an accommodation letter would not be used until after eligibility is established and not everybody will need to get one of these.
_____________________________________________________________________The following might not only help with this step, but may be referred to throughout the entire 504 process:
Key Verbiage for School Meetings/Letters re-post