u/Consistent-Most-9054

Before anyone scrolls past thinking this is spam or a grift, let me be straight about what this is and is not.

I am a 100% P&T disabled veteran and a federal employee. Like a lot of us, I am watching disabled vets get forced back into offices while the reasonable accommodation process gets used to wear us down. Meanwhile, spouses of 100% disabled vets got a categorical RTO exemption by policy. We did not. Same disability, different law.

I got tired of feeling like there was nothing to do, so I built did something about it and build a basic simple website with free advocacy tools so nobody has to start from scratch. I don’t get paid, it’s not self promotion. it’s not spam, it doesn’t ask for your info. It just has info and templates if YOU want to take action and do something. That’s it.

What it is:
- A one-page brief explaining the gap, with real cases and sources, that you can hand to a VSO or a congressional office.
- Fill-in-the-blank letters to your senators and representative.
- A model VSO resolution you can run through a DAV, VFW, Legion, or AMVETS chapter.
- A facts-and-sources page on how RTO is hurting the government, taxpayers, and disabled vets.
- A short guide on what order to do things in.

What it is NOT:
- Nothing is for sale. No products, no services, no donations, no membership, no upsell, no self promotion.
- I make zero dollars from this. It’s just a free wix site with templates to download if someone wants to partake. There is nothing to buy and nothing to fund.
- I am not a lawyer or a nonprofit asking for money. I am one vet with a laptop.
- It is not a data grab. You do not have to give anything to use the templates. If you choose to share your story, you aren’t sharing it with me, it goes to whoever you send it to—-VSOs, your congressional reps, senators, veterans congressional committee, etc.

The whole point is simple: give 100% P&T vets the same categorical RTO protection their spouses already have, regardless of when the rating started. The tools are there so it is not just one person making noise.

If you are a 100% P&T fed dealing with this, take what is useful, tailor it, and send it. Share it with people you know who it applies to. Share it to people who know someone it applies to and supports the issue. There is only strength in numbers.

https://equalexemptioninit.wixsite.com/equalexemptioninit

Mods, if links are not allowed here, let me know and I will pull it. Not trying to break any rules.

Before anyone scrolls past thinking this is spam or a grift, let me be straight about what this is and is not.

I am a 100% P&T disabled veteran and a federal employee. Like a lot of us, I am watching disabled vets get forced back into offices while the reasonable accommodation process gets used to wear us down. Meanwhile, spouses of 100% disabled vets got a categorical RTO exemption by policy. We did not. Same disability, different law.

I got tired of feeling like there was nothing to do, so I built did something about it and build a basic simple website with free advocacy tools so nobody has to start from scratch. I don’t get paid, it’s not self promotion. it’s not spam, it doesn’t ask for your info. It just has info and templates if YOU want to take action and do something. That’s it.

What it is:
- A one-page brief explaining the gap, with real cases and sources, that you can hand to a VSO or a congressional office.
- Fill-in-the-blank letters to your senators and representative.
- A model VSO resolution you can run through a DAV, VFW, Legion, or AMVETS chapter.
- A facts-and-sources page on how RTO is hurting the government, taxpayers, and disabled vets.
- A short guide on what order to do things in.

What it is NOT:
- Nothing is for sale. No products, no services, no donations, no membership, no upsell, no self promotion.
- I make zero dollars from this. It’s just a free wix site with templates to download if someone wants to partake. There is nothing to buy and nothing to fund.
- I am not a lawyer or a nonprofit asking for money. I am one vet with a laptop.
- It is not a data grab. You do not have to give anything to use the templates. If you choose to share your story, you aren’t sharing it with me, it goes to whoever you send it to—-VSOs, your congressional reps, senators, veterans congressional committee, etc.

The whole point is simple: give 100% P&T vets the same categorical RTO protection their spouses already have, regardless of when the rating started. The tools are there so it is not just one person making noise.

If you are a 100% P&T fed dealing with this, take what is useful, tailor it, and send it. Share it with people you know who it applies to. Share it to people who know someone it applies to and supports the issue. There is only strength in numbers.

https://equalexemptioninit.wixsite.com/equalexemptioninit

Mods, if links are not allowed here, let me know and I will pull it. Not trying to break any rules.

This is a long read, but my ask is that if you are a 100% P&T Veteran, a Veteran in general, a non veteran or spouse of a veteran who supports veterans….read and comment if you are willing to do something, comment if you have connections that can assist. Let’s come together and take action.

If you are a 100% P&T veteran in federal service fighting to keep remote work, here is the gut punch. The spouse of a 100% disabled veteran is categorically exempt from the return-to-office mandate. The disabled veteran is not. This post is NOT a bash on spouses. I support you, I am happy you got your exemption!

However….same household. Same disability. The non-disabled spouse keeps remote work automatically. The veteran has to document it, fight for it, and can still lose it all which will exasperate their disabilities. Not to mention the RA process alone is exasperating their disabilities because it’s a burdensome fight.

And this is the part people get wrong: the agencies are mostly not breaking the law. They are operating inside the rules. The problem is the rules were never built for us. Here is how the gap actually works.

When OPM rolled out RTO, it created categorical exemptions for military and Foreign Service spouses. That carve-out covers the spouse of a member who, on the date that member retired or was discharged, had a 100% VA disability rating. So the non-disabled spouse keeps remote work by category. No documentation fight. No interactive process. No counterproposals. Automatic.

That benefit attaches through the marriage and the military family-readiness policy behind it. Spouses, MOAA, and military family groups organized for years to win it. I am glad they have it. They earned it. This is not me coming for the spouses. This is an attempt for a call to action to fight for legislation for the actual Veteran with the disability who wants to continue being gainfully employed in service to this country. It’s an ask for legislation for equal treatment for the actual veteran, that spouses already receive.

But it is a spouse benefit rooted in family policy. It is not a disability protections. And there is no parallel anywhere that gives the disabled veteran that same categorical treatment as a class. That is the gap.
So when a 100% P&T veteran wants to keep working remotely, there are two doors and both are bad.
Door one is reasonable accommodation under the Rehabilitation Act. People hear “you have RA rights” and think that settles it. It does not, and here is what they do not tell you:

1.	**RA is blind to your VA rating.** The process is built around generic functional limitations and essential job functions, not service connection or a disability percentage. They will not accept your VA P&T rating letter as documentation. At all. You have to get an agency medical form filled out by a provider describing limitations in general terms. Your 100% means nothing in that room.  
2.	**Even if you win it, you do not keep it.** Agencies are requiring annual re-justification, so you re-prove a permanent, VA-adjudicated disability to a supervisor every single year.  
3.	**They can take it back.** OPM and EEOC guidance from February 2026 lets agencies reassess accommodations they already granted and swap your telework for an “effective alternative.” Agencies across government are revoking telework agreements right now. That is documented fact, not a rumor. DOJ is being sued by employees with disabilities who say the department is categorically denying telework accommodations. Defense employees have had approved accommodations rescinded weeks after they were granted.  
4.	**The trap inside the trap:** if they offer an in-office alternative, they can make you try it for weeks before you are allowed to call it ineffective. If you are forced into a trial, document everything, every symptom flare and every essential function you could not perform, because that record is the only thing that ends it.

And the part almost too absurd to type: we have veterans the VA itself rated housebound, meaning the government formally determined they are substantially confined to their home by service-connected disability, being ordered to commute and sit in an office five days a week. One arm of the government pays them a housebound benefit. Another orders them in. Sit with that.

Door two is a discretionary agency-head exemption for a “compelling reason.” Leadership could grant these tomorrow. They will not. Goodwill from the top is not a plan.

One more thing. Even the spouse version ties eligibility to the member being 100% on the date of discharge. That is nonsense. 100% P&T is 100% P&T no matter when the rating landed. You catch a bad C&P examiner. You get a rater who does not apply every law on the books. The condition progresses over years. Or you carry that combat stigma and white-knuckle it for a decade out of pride before you ever file. The date the rating posted says nothing about how disabled you are today.

Here is the ask, and where I need you.
The spouse exemption did not appear by magic. People organized, a veterans organization carried it, lawmakers pushed, and OPM acted. Nobody has ever run that play for disabled veterans in federal employment. So let us run it.

The first win does not have to be huge. The cleanest one: accept a VA permanent and total rating as sufficient documentation, and stop forcing 100% P&T vets to re-justify a permanent disability every year. From there, the real goal is a categorical exemption for 100% P&T vets regardless of rating date, the same as spouses already have, with the difference of the rating date not being included as when you were rated does not change the fact that you are rated and it does not make it any different than someone rated on the day of discharge. 100% P&T is 100% P&T, regardless of the date of rating.

The way this moves is through a VSO. DAV, PVA, VFW, and MOAA all have legislative shops, and they set priorities through resolutions that start at the local chapter level. One adopted resolution puts this on a national organization’s agenda. That beats a thousand solo emails.

So:
1. Are you a 100% P&T fed dealing with this? Comment. The people who can help need to see how many of us there are.
2. Which VSO are you a member of, and would you push a resolution through your chapter? I have model language ready.
3. Has anyone already started something like this? Point me to it so we join forces instead of splitting up.
4. Anyone with legislative advocacy experience, I will take all the guidance I can get.

I think I’ve figured out why this is happening and what we’d need to ask for. What I don’t have is the people, the resources. That’s the part I can’t do alone, and it’s why I’m posting this.

Is anyone willing to come together to take action, do something, and make a difference?

got my RA approved, in the email that my RAC sent if says “The decision-making official has approved your accommodation TO WHAT YOU ORIGINALLY REQUESTED.” I was too exited after way of over a year of worry so I scrolled and signed the form didn’t think much of it then. But now….since I’ve had time to think into it…..

My original request was on my 0857a which says full time permanent REMOTE work with ability to move in support of diagnosis (this will actually be needed, not now but eventually, I may need assistance at home but will be able to work functionally and well. my conditions are complex. My son currently assists, but eventually when he’s an adult he will will not be at my beck and call) it does not match what they put in block 8 of the 0857f which states the accommodation you requested is : and in the box it says full time TELEWORK. that is not what I requested. yes this is medically necessary eventually needed for family support especially if my condition worsens while at home and working. (Come at you if you will but the move will legitimately be medically necessary years down the road, not immediately). Another genuine question, are hardship waivers a thing with the VA in these circumstances when I can perform my job?

On the approval they checked block 9 Accommodation Decision: approved requested accommodation.

They also didn’t fill in block 10 which should have the effective date. I’d been on an interim.

they put in block 12 which applies to alternative accommodations: accommodation will support employee in performing essential functions , but this isn’t an alternative accommodation as I was told by RAC the above and box 9 on the approval.

the top of the form does say if anything is incorrect to contact as soon as possible. no response yet, but it is incorrect. the DMO had to see my 0857a which lists my functional limitations but no medical as well as my request.

another main concern: telework is different than remote

advice please, don’t judge, you don’t know my medical history. are they obligated to amend it to make it accurately reflect what they say they approved which was my original request as well as put a start date and is filling block 12 a procedural error?

TIA. Asking genuinely for authentic answers Without judgement. I am still grateful, but you see the issue here.

Almost two decades of fed service, I was hired as remote in 2018. I have a very serious OPM-classified targeted disability that triggers many serious secondary medical conditions to that disability that are collectively triggered and would create many barriers to me being able to perform the essential functions of my job in office. So thankful for my RA request to be approved today. Filed and been on interim since March 2025.

I believe what helped me is genuinely having a serious medical condition (technically multiple) and need for the RA (obviously) but also a doctor who can medically attest and opine on your condition(s) in providing the severity and duration that draws a nexus between the functional limitations and the need for 100% accommodation.

The burden of proof is on you and your doctor. Not all docs know what these federal forms require and will put something basic and general, which you think may work, but it doesn’t. Do your research, guide them for specifics that legitimately apply to you and your conditions, and if they medically concur because they know you and have been treating you, they will notate it. Unless you just have a really crappy doctor. But I will say, anyone that’s been seeing a doctor routinely for years for chronic conditions shouldn’t have any issues and if your doctor was crappy you should’ve been seeing another one. If you meet the burden of proof, have an actual serious condition, and have good medical documentation you'll get it one way or another whether it be initial, reconsideration, or EEO.

To those who have filed who just don’t want to go to an office, kick rocks. You’ve put those of us who actually needed these through the wringer the last year overloading the system, which made the wait longer for those of us with actual conditions, further exasperating our conditions.

One less burden to worry about for now, unless Sec HeeHaw does us dirty like HHS. otherwise super grateful for now.