Is it legal for a prospective employer to force you to have a medical procedure to get the job?

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I found this ad on Craigslist and was completely blown away by it. Please let me know what you think. It HAS to be illegal in some way. This guy is looking for an Executive Secretary for his Lasik practice in NYC. It's one thing to look for a great new employee and want your current ones to perform well but this guy is a bit over the top. He must have had a really bad day and you can tell from his post that he hates his employees. He says that in order to apply for the job, you MUST wear contacts or glasses and get a lasik procedure (this is a job requirement). What???? Is he for real??? Someone has to report this guy. So, if you have great vision, you can't work for him? Is he nuts? I guess he's not forcing you to work for him but with the job market the way it is now, if you are an experienced secretary that meets a lot of these requirements, is it legal for this guy NOT to hire you because you refuse un unnecessary medical procedure? Attorneys???? Anyone have any thoughts on this. I just had to share this with others.


Here is the ad as it was posted today:

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY FOR LASER VISION CORRECTION CENTER-MUST WANT LASEK (Flatiron)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: job-1010080759@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-01-27, 3:42PM EST

DO NOT REPLY TO THIS AD UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TIME TO READ IT CAREFULLY TO THE END, AS THERE ARE SEVERAL APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS, ALL OF WHICH YOU HAVE TO MEET AND SUBMIT

SO IF YOU ARE SIMPLY GOING TO REPLY TO THIS AND 100 OTHER ADS WITH A STOCK RESPONSE AND COVER LETTER, DON'T BOTHER AS I WILL NOT EVEN OPEN YOUR EMAIL I WILL JUST DELETE IT

I CAN TELL FROM HOW YOU APPLY WHETHER YOU EVEN BOTHERED TO READ THIS ENTIRE AD, WHICH IS ONE REASON I AM PUTTING IN SUCH SPECIFIC APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS--TO WEED OUT THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T BOTHER TO READ THE ADS FULLY AND JUST SPAM RESUMES TO EMPLOYERS, WHICH IS NOT THE WAY TO GET A JOB

I am the MD owner of www.ParkAvenueLaser.com which is NYC’s only 100% no-cut, no-flap, all-laser LASEK and epi-LASEK center

VISIT OUR WEBSITE BEFORE YOU APPLY FOR THIS JOB SO YOU KNOW WHAT WE DO SO YOU CAN SEE IF YOU’RE A GOOD FIT!

Job Requirements (you must meet ALL of these to apply):
1. Graduate of a 4-year college, AND
2. 10 years experience of full-time work after graduating from college, AND
3. 5 years experience as a full-time receptionist or secretary, AND
4. 1 year of experience in a medical or spa or retail job, AND
5. you need to be wearing glasses and/or contacts and want to get laser vision correction, AND
6. computer literate, good with Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, ACT!

Daily Tasks (my current secretaries make all of these mistakes on a daily basis—you should not):
1. Call ALL appointments to confirm them (they now call “most” of them)
2. Give me my highlighted schedule every night of the next day’s activities
3. Pull all charts and prep them TWO DAYS BEFORE the patients come in (again, they say they do this “most” of the time, but in need to be done all of the time)
4. Clear ALL medical insurances and check for referrals every time BEFORE patient comes in
5. Collect ALL copays and record ALL in BOTH the chart AND receipt book every time
6. Log in ALL payments received on the spreadsheet every time
7. Give patients a receipt of payments and have me sign the receipt book
8. Enter people’s FULL contact information in ACT! when they call / come in
9. Check demographic sheet patients fill out to make sure it is complete
10. do NOT purposely circumvent ACT! system by entering “.” instead of real information
11. Ask patients to spell their names, company name, and email address
12. Get the full name, phone #, date, time, and details of every message
13. Properly greet patients and offer them complimentary tea/coffee/water
14. Straighten out the waiting room at least once a day
15. Come out from behind the front desk / sit down next to “VIP” patients
16. Decrement # of referrals in the chart, and ask for new referral as gets to 0
17. Check expiration dates of insurance cards and referrals
18. Check charts to make sure patients actually paid for their LASEK before surgery
19. Tell me or other staff members in a timely fashion when problems arise
20. Take action to fix small problems so they don’t become a big problem
21. Properly communicate issues to the other staff at the daily morning meeting
22. Don’t check patients out too quickly and not double-check that they understand directions
23. Tell prospective patients about your own LASEK (which you’ll get for free) to get them excited!:)
24. Understand we are an elective surgery center, so you have to do marketing (e.g., get leads fr. patients)
25. Ask every 20/20 happy patient for leads (names of friends interested in getting lasered)
26. Notice which patients no-show for their postop. appointments and GET THEM IN!

Comments

  1. sparky2gig says:
    January 13, 2010 at 7:49 am

    What is asserted and proposed in this ad is not only ludicrous, but definitely outside the realm of acceptable conditions for pre employment screening. This would fall under the laws of disability discrimination as well as other pertinent laws applicable in the jurisdiction wherein this ridiculous ad was placed. This is assuming that it is a real and bonafide ad placed by a prospective employer.

    Provided this ad was placed or authorized to be placed by a legitimate hiring authority, it is a severely misguided attempt by this employer to employ a person or persons who has or will soon have first hand knowledge of the main thrust of their employment. This being the sale and commission of a certain medical procedure, and other subsequent operations or attentions inherent to such treatments and procedures.

    One could easily imagine a cardiovascular surgeon setting prerequisite requirements for a surgical nurse of having previously had angioplasty or open heart surgery performed prior to joining his surgical unit. One, no respected and competent heart surgeon would specify such, and two, if they did, prospective patients should have their head examined for ever considering allowing such a practitioner to perform a blood pressure examination, let alone, a life threatening procedure or a procedure which might result in diminished vision or blindness.

    Were there a qualified applicant initiating prospective employment activities, who was bespectacled, upon rejection of employment for refusal to adhere to these ridiculous conditions of employment, they would have cause to litigate under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and quite possibly have a cause of action under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This would be dependent upon whether this numb skull’s practice received any Federal Subsistence in the form of grants or loans.

    If a qualified, ordinarily healthy individual applied and was subsequently rejected as a result of refusing to comply with the preposterous stipulations outlined in your description, they too would have recourse under employment discrimination law, although it would require development of a whole other set of issues.

    This person or party or parties needs to be reported to the governing board of their medical practice in the jurisdiction in which they are resident. Hopefully, upon counseling and advisement, they would modify both their attitude and their policies as specified. In the meantime, warn all your friends and associates if you can identify the practitioner or practitioners. This may e a problem with Craig’s List unless they list their business or you follow up as a prospective candidate specifically to establish the identity of these miscreants.

    Lawyers no longer have any ethical consternation, why should some idiot with a high tech laser tool, making about 3 grand every time they fire it up be any different?

  2. Myth_Understood says:
    January 13, 2010 at 7:49 am

    Well … I’m not a lawyer, so this is pure speculation on my part.

    Having said that, if this doctor is willing to give someone free LASEK vision corrected in order to hire them, he’s not forcing anyone into anything. It’s a voluntary thing … applying for a job. If you don’t wear glasses or contacts and/or don’t want to get your eyes fixed for free in order to work for this guy, then you don’t have to apply.

    I see nothing wrong, unless you think it’s discrimination against people with perfect vision. However … come on – dude’s an eye doctor, and he wants to hire people who are a walking advertisement for his product. After reading his requirements, he sounds like a control freak who wants to get as many patients thru the door and on the table as possible. Zero tolerance for wasted time. I guess that’s how you make money, but if I got wind of who this doctor was, I wouldn’t go to him to get my vision corrected.

    Best of luck !!

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