How to Fill Out and Submit VA Form 0857c: Reasonable Accommodation Request

VA Form 0857c is the Department of Veterans Affairs’ request form for a reasonable accommodation — a change to your job, workspace, or schedule that lets you do your work despite a disability. To use it, fill in your position information, describe the functional limitation affecting your work, propose a specific accommodation, and submit the completed form to your immediate supervisor or your local Reasonable Accommodation Coordinator. The form itself is technically voluntary, but the VA has stated it cannot process a request without a completed copy, so treat it as required in practice.

Who Can Use This Form

Any current VA employee — full-time, part-time, or temporary — and any outside applicant for a VA position can request an accommodation. Applicants can ask for adjustments during hiring, interviews, or testing. Current employees can request at any point during employment.

You qualify if you have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity such as walking, seeing, hearing, concentrating, or performing manual tasks. You also qualify if you have a record of such an impairment or the VA regards you as having one. Impairments that are both minor and expected to last six months or less don’t count under the “regarded as” category.¹

Where to Get the Form and What to Have Ready

VA Form 0857c is available through the VA’s internal publications system and from your local Human Resources office. If you have access to the VA intranet, search the VA Forms library.

Before you start writing, pull together three things: your official employment details, a plain description of what your condition prevents you from doing at work, and a specific idea of the accommodation you want. You don’t have to wait for the form to start the process. Federal policy lets you make a reasonable accommodation request orally or in writing, in any wording, to your supervisor, any manager in your chain of command, or the EEO office, and the agency cannot delay processing while it waits for a written form.² Filing the form up front just spares you the follow-up.

Filling Out the Form

Personal and Employment Information

The top section asks for your full name, contact information, and your job title. Applicants should list the position they’ve applied for. Get your official title right, because the VA will compare your requested accommodation against the essential functions of that specific role.

Describing Your Limitation

Next, describe the medical condition or functional limitation affecting your work. Skip the medical history. Focus on what your impairment prevents you from doing or makes significantly harder. Something like “chronic lower back condition limits my ability to sit for more than 30 minutes” gives the VA what it needs. A paragraph about diagnosis and treatment doesn’t. Connect the impairment to a specific barrier at work.

Identifying the Barrier and the Accommodation You Want

Explain which parts of your job or workspace are inaccessible or significantly harder because of your condition, then propose a specific accommodation. Common examples in federal workplaces include modified work schedules, telework, ergonomic furniture or equipment, assistive technology such as screen readers, reassignment to a vacant position, or changes to how or where job tasks are performed. You aren’t locked into your first proposal; the VA can suggest alternatives during the interactive process. But a concrete starting point moves things faster than a vague request for help.

When You’ll Need Medical Documentation

The VA can ask for medical documentation, but not in every case. If both your disability and your need for the accommodation are obvious, or if you’ve already given the VA enough information to establish the disability and your limitations, the agency has no basis to ask for records.³ An employee who uses a wheelchair and asks for a ramp shouldn’t be asked for a doctor’s note.

When documentation is appropriate, the VA will provide Form 0857e for your healthcare provider to complete. The provider should describe your functional limitations and explain why the requested accommodation is necessary, not turn over your full chart. Keep the scope narrow: diagnosis, effect on work tasks, and how the accommodation closes the gap. If the initial documentation is insufficient, the VA may request more or have its own medical expert review the file at agency expense.² You have 20 business days from the VA’s request to provide documentation.⁴

Where to Submit the Form

Deliver the completed form to your immediate supervisor or to your local Reasonable Accommodation Coordinator (RAC). The VA maintains a directory of RAC contacts by facility and administration through its Reasonable Accommodations page.⁵ Applicants should send the form to whoever they’ve been dealing with in the hiring process.

Use a method that creates a record: email with a delivery receipt, a secure upload with confirmation, or hand delivery with a signed acknowledgment. The submission date starts the VA’s processing clock, so keep proof of exactly when it happened.

What Happens After You Submit

The RAC confirms receipt to you and to the Decision-Making Official (DMO), then reviews the request. For applicants, Human Resources processes the request within 10 business days of receipt.⁴

The DMO will schedule an interactive meeting to discuss which essential job functions are affected and what accommodations could work. If your initial request isn’t feasible, the DMO should explore alternatives with you rather than deny outright. Within 30 business days of receiving your request, the RAC reviews any medical documentation, the Essential Function Analysis for your position, and gives the DMO guidance for the interactive meeting.⁴ The DMO decides as soon as possible after the meeting.

If processing takes time — waiting on medical records, ordering equipment, working through the meeting — the DMO may provide an interim accommodation. It isn’t guaranteed, so if your situation is urgent, raise it early.

When the VA Can Deny

The VA can deny a request that would cause significant difficulty or expense, an “undue hardship.” That analysis weighs the size of the workforce, the number and type of facilities, the budget, workforce composition, and the nature and cost of the specific accommodation.⁴

One detail worth knowing before you file: only the Secretary of Veterans Affairs can deny an accommodation request based on cost.⁴ A local supervisor or facility director cannot reject your request by pointing to the budget. If cost is the stated reason for a denial, the decision had to reach the Secretary.

If Your Request Is Denied

Any denial has to be in writing and has to explain the specific reasons.² You have three options, and they aren’t mutually exclusive.

Request reconsideration in writing from the DMO or RAC within 7 business days of the date on your determination notice. This is the fastest route and keeps things internal. Submit new medical evidence or a revised proposal if you have one.⁴
File an EEO complaint by contacting an agency EEO counselor within 45 calendar days of the denial. After counseling, you have 15 days from the Notice of Final Interview to file a formal complaint. The 45-day window is strict, and missing it usually ends the claim.⁶
Use the VA’s Alternative Dispute Resolution process, an informal path that doesn’t require going through the full EEO track.⁴

Confidentiality of Your Medical Information

Reasonable accommodation requests are handled confidentially. The VA discloses your medical information only to people with a direct need to know, which typically means your RAC, the DMO, and possibly an HR specialist or agency medical reviewer.⁵ Your coworkers have no right to know why your schedule changed or why new equipment appeared at your desk. Improper disclosure can itself be the basis of an EEO complaint.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 12102 – Definition of Disability
2
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Questions and Answers – Policy Guidance on Executive Order 13164
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC Informal Discussion Letter
4
Department of Veterans Affairs. Understanding the Reasonable Accommodation Process
5
Department of Veterans Affairs. Reasonable Accommodations
6
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Federal EEO Complaint Processing Procedures