2023 Tennessee Code › Title 49 - EDUCATION (§§ 49-1-NEW — 49-50-1703) › Chapter 11 - VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION (§§ 49-11-101 — 49-11-909) › Part 6 - VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION LAW OF TENNESSEE (§§ 49-11-601 — 49-11-614) › Section 49-11-602 - Part definitions

As used in this part, unless the content otherwise requires:
(1)
"Commissioner" means the commissioner of human services;
(2)
"Department" means the department of human services;
(3)
"Director" means director of the vocational rehabilitation program;
(4)
"Division" means the division of rehabilitation services;
(5)
(A)
"Eligible individual with a disability," when used with respect to diagnostic and related services, training, guidance and placement, means any person with a disability who is a bona fide resident of this state at the time of application, whose vocational rehabilitation is determined feasible by the division;
(B)
When used with respect to other rehabilitation services, "eligible individual with a disability" means an individual meeting the requirements of subdivision (5)(A) who is also found by the division to require financial assistance with respect to rehabilitation services, after full consideration of the individual's eligibility for any similar benefit by the way of pension, compensation and insurance;
(6)
"Establishment of a rehabilitation facility" means the expansion, remodeling, or alteration of existing buildings, and initial equipment of the buildings, necessary to adapt the buildings to rehabilitation facility purposes or to increase the buildings' effectiveness for rehabilitation purposes and initial staffing of the facility;
(7)
"Individual with a disability" means an individual of employable age who has a disability that constitutes a substantial barrier to employment, but that is of such a nature that appropriate vocational rehabilitation services may reasonably be expected to:
(A)
Render the individual able to engage in a remunerative occupation; or
(B)
Enable the individual to wholly or substantially achieve such ability of independent living as to dispense with the need of institutional care or to dispense or largely dispense with the need of an attendant at home;
(8)
"Maintenance" means the provision of money to cover a handicapped individual's necessary living expenses and health maintenance essential to achieving the handicapped individual's vocational rehabilitation;
(9)
"Nonprofit," when used with respect to a rehabilitation facility or a workshop, means a rehabilitation facility and a workshop, respectively, owned and operated by a corporation or association, no part of the net earnings of which inures, or may lawfully inure, to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual and the income of which is exempt from taxation under § 501 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 (
26 U.S.C. § 501
);
(10)
"Physical restoration" includes:
(A)
Corrective surgery or therapeutic treatment necessary to correct or substantially modify a physical or mental condition that is stable or slowly progressive and:
(i)
Constitutes a substantial barrier to employment; or
(ii)
Necessitates institutional care or attendant care, but is of such a nature that the correction or modification may reasonably be expected to eliminate or substantially reduce the barrier within a reasonable length of time and includes psychiatric treatment, dentistry, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech or hearing therapy, treatment of medical complications and emergencies that are associated with or arise out of physical restoration services or are inherent in the conditions under treatment, and other medical services related to rehabilitation;
(B)
Necessary hospitalization, either in patient or out patient, nursing or rest home care, in connection with surgery or treatment specified in subdivision (10)(A); and
(C)
Prosthetic devices essential to:
(i)
Obtaining or retaining employment; or
(ii)
Achieving such ability of independent living as to dispense with the need for expensive institutional care or dispense with or largely dispense with the need of an attendant at home;
(11)
"Prosthetic appliance" means any appliance designed to support or take the place of a part of the body or to increase the acuity of a sensory organ;
(12)
"Rehabilitation facility" means a facility operated for the primary purpose of assisting in the rehabilitation of physically handicapped individuals:
(A)
That provides one (1) or more of the following types of services:
(i)
Testing, fitting or training in the use of prosthetic devices;
(ii)
Pre-vocational or conditioning therapy;
(iii)
Physical or occupational therapy;
(iv)
Adjustment training; or
(v)
Evaluation or control of special disabilities; or
(B)
Through which is provided an integrated program of medical, psychological, social and vocational evaluation and services under competent professional supervision;
(13)
"Remunerative occupation" includes employment as an employee or self-employed, practice of a profession, homemaking or farm and family work for which payment is in kind rather than cash, sheltered employment and home industry or other homebound work of a remunerative nature;
(14)
"Vocational rehabilitation" means making an individual able, or increasing the individual's ability, to:
(A)
Engage in a remunerative occupation; or
(B)
Dispense with or largely dispense with the need of an attendant at home or expensive institutional care, through providing the individual needed vocational rehabilitation services; and
(15)
"Vocational rehabilitation services" means:
(A)
Diagnostic and related services, including transportation, incidental to the determination of whether an individual is a handicapped individual, and if so, the individual's eligibility for, and the nature and scope of, other vocational rehabilitation services to be provided; and
(B)
The following services provided eligible handicapped individuals needing the services:
(i)
Training;
(ii)
Guidance;
(iii)
Placement;
(iv)
Maintenance, not exceeding the estimated costs of subsistence during vocational rehabilitation;
(v)
Occupational licenses, tools, equipment, initial stocks and supplies, including equipment and initial stocks and supplies for vending stands, books and training materials;
(vi)
Transportation, other than provided as diagnostic and related services; and
(vii)
Physical restoration.
Amended by 2019 Tenn. Acts, ch. 204,Secs.s17, s18, s19 eff. 4/25/2019.
Amended by 2018 Tenn. Acts, ch. 720,s 1, eff. 4/12/2018.
Acts 1947, ch. 93, § 2; C. Supp. 1950, § 2483.2 (Williams, § 2483.12); Acts 1955, ch. 141, § 1; 1959, ch. 305, § 1; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 49-2802; Acts 2011, ch. 47, §§ 36 - 39.