Guidance and Position Statements

Guidance and Position Statements

ACOEM provides recommendations for occupational health professionals on managing various situations which may arise in their practice or state the College’s position on a particular subject. These documents may be based upon the scientific literature or consensus opinion.
Building a Healthier Workforce: The Value of Employer-Sponsored Vaccinations and Vaccination Programs in the Workplace

Workplace vaccination programs are a highly effective strategy for promoting employee health, reducing absenteeism, and improving productivity while yielding significant cost savings to employers. Offering on-site vaccination clinics can further improve vaccine uptake and increase cost efficiency by making immunization more convenient and accessible. Employers are uniquely positioned to lead these efforts, leveraging their health benefits programs and resources to ensure accessible and effective vaccination coverage.
 

08/26/2026 By Jacqueline Cook, MD, MPH, Miriam Alexander, MD, MPH, James Lo, DO, MPH, Brian Chen, MD, MPH, Dominik Dabrowski, MD, MPH, Beth Baker, MD, MPH, Isabel Montoya, MPH, Julie Ording, MPH
The Role of the Professional Supervisor in Audiometric Testing Component of Hearing Conservation Programs

Document was reaffirmed as current in July 2026.

This guidance statement discusses the role of occupational medicine clinicians in the supervision of audiometric surveillance under the auspices of hearing conservation programs.

07/18/2026
The Value Proposition: What OEM Physicians Bring to Healthcare Sustainability

With training and experience in exposure prevention, hazard mitigation, and systems-based thinking, OEM physicians bring knowledge and skills in developing and executing sustainability initiatives in complex healthcare environments. This article explores how core OEM frameworks and tools can be used to reduce healthcare-related emissions, waste, and resource consumption while also developing strategies to address the effects of climate change on health.

05/26/2026 By Michael Zimmerman, MD, Tracy Tang, MOT, MBA, Patthrarawalai Sirinara, MD, MPH, PhD, Hannah Thompson, MD, and Manijeh Berenji, MD, MPH
Harnessing Occupational and Environmental Medicine Expertise to Transform Medical Care: A Catalyst for Mitigating the Human Health Impacts of Climate Change

The escalating global health crisis precipitated by climate change demands urgent attention in health care education and practice. This paper explores the pivotal role of occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) clinicians as a resource for climate change education and practice across the health professions.

10/06/2025 By Drs. Robert McLellan, Manijeh Berenji, Ada Egbuji, Kathleen Fagan, Ismail Nabeel, William Brett Perkison, Peter Rabinowitz, Romero Santiago, Patthrarawalai Sirinara, Emily Stoneman, Hannah Thompson
ACOEM Tip Sheet on Coding Evaluation and Management Encounters for Workers’ Compensation - 2025 Update

In 2021, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented new rules for coding outpatient Evaluation and Management (E&M) encounters. These rules were updated in 2024. Under these rules, providers can use time-based or medical decision making (MDM) based coding for encounters that follow CMS rules. Many, but not all, workers’ compensation (WC) insurance providers have also adopted the new rules. Therefore, ACOEM developed this tip sheet to assist providers of WC care in appropriately documenting care using the new coding model. 

08/23/2025 By Marianne Cloeren, MD, MPH; Kathryn L. Mueller, MD, MPH; Douglas W. Martin, MD; Jill A. Rosenthal, MD, MPH, MA; Robert C. Blink, MD, MPH; Tanisha K. Taylor, MD, MPH, MBA
Laboratory Animal Allergy

Ranging from mild respiratory allergy to anaphylaxis, laboratory animal allergy (LAA) can adversely affect an individual’s health and career. This guidance statement addresses the causes of allergy, approaches to exposure control, occupational medicine programs for animal research related to allergy including medical surveillance, and a programmatic approach to worker protection through prevention.

05/07/2025 By Gregg M. Stave, MD, JD, MPH, Melanie D. Swift, MD, MPH, Michelle K. Gochnour, MN, T. Warner Hudson, MD, Marcia T. Isakari, MD, MPH, and Amy J. Behrman, MD
Incorporating Lifestyle Medicine into Occupational Medicine Practice

Lifestylemedicine (LM) utilizes evidencebased therapeutic lifestyle changes to address lifestyle factors that impact health, performance, and injury risk and recovery. By integrating LM principles into clinical care, workplace policies, and programs, along with other evidence-based methods, occupational and environmental medicine clinicians and medical directors can enhance worker health and performance, manage chronic disease, and facilitate faster recovery from injury and illness. This guidance addresses approaches that can be used in the clinic and workplace to address tobacco, substance misuse, nutrition, physical activity, overweight/obesity, sleep, mental wellbeing, and social connectedness.

01/03/2025 By Pamela Hymel, MD, Gregg Stave, MD, Wayne Burton, MD, Alyssa Schultz, PhD, Nathan Jones, MD, Jeffrey Liva, MD, Richard Price, MD, Ron Loeppke, MD, Ronald Stout, MD, Kenji Saito, MD
Addressing Environmental Health - Clinician Training and Practice of Environmental Medicine

This guidance paper explores the role of occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) clinicians, comprising both physicians and advanced practice providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, in addressing environmental health concerns in both clinical practice and prevention policies. It also provides a discussion on emerging environmental occupations, clinical competencies in environmental medicine, and careers
in environmental health.
 

12/02/2024 By Manijeh Berenji, MD, Beth Baker, MD, Pouné Saberi, MD, Robert McLellan, MD, Douglas Wendland, MD, Kevin Trangle, MD, Kenneth Spaeth, MD, Judith Green-McKenzie, MD, Kathleen Fagan, MD
Occupational Electronic Health Records - Recommendations for the Design and Implementation of Information Systems in OEM Practice

Occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) clinicians require specialized electronic health records (EHRs) to address the privacy, data governance, interoperability, and medical surveillance concerns that are specific to occupational health. ACOEM presents 10 recommendations that specialized occupational EHR systems (OEHRs) should meet to serve the information needs and practice requirements of OEM clinicians. 

11/04/2024 By Louis E. Fazen, MD, PhD, Bill E. Martin, IV, MD, MBA, MPH, MMCi, Marcia Isakari, MD, MPH, Michele Kowalski-McGraw, MD, MPH, Robert K. McLellan, MD, MPH, Raj Ahsan, MD, MPH, Manijeh Berenji, MD, MPH