{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/rehabilitation-counselors/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Rehabilitation Counselors", "soc_code": "21-1015", "category": "Social Service", "us_employment": 94740, "median_annual_wage": 46850 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 58, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 8, "trust_premium": 17, "judgment_accountability": 13 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "IPE drafting, eligibility narratives from medical and psychological reports, labor-market surveys pulled from O*NET, and progress notes are the bulk of billable hours and already draft themselves, but the counterweight is real: job-site accommodation walkthroughs, motivational interviewing with a client who just lost a placement, and employer negotiation over a schedule change keep this at 11 rather than down with claims processing.", "embodiment": "You are in cars a lot — home visits, job coaching on a warehouse floor, ergonomic assessments at a client's workstation, transport to interviews — but the work itself is talking and observing, not lifting or manipulating, so it sits at 9 rather than the 14+ of an occupational therapist doing hands-on transfers and modality treatment.", "liability_shield": "CRC certification plus state VR agency requirements mean a named counselor must sign eligibility determinations and authorize service purchases, and CARF/state audits do bite — but you carry no independent practice license, malpractice exposure sits with the agency or CARF-accredited provider, and a non-certified case manager can lawfully do much of the same work in many private and workers'-comp settings, which caps this at 8.", "trust_premium": "Clients disclose criminal history, active substance use, psychiatric symptoms, and fear of losing SSDI to a specific person they have seen for two years; a transferred caseload measurably stalls, and employers agree to hire a client because they know you, not because a system recommended a match — that continuity is the intervention, hence 17.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether someone with a fluctuating condition has a substantial impediment to employment, whether an unsuccessful closure or a costly retraining plan is justified, and when to close a case over a client's objection — high-stakes calls under Rehabilitation Act order-of-selection rules and appealable to a hearing officer, but bounded by written state eligibility criteria and supervisor sign-off on expensive authorizations, so 13 not 17." }, "rationale": "Much of the visible workload is paperwork AI already handles well: writing Individualized Plans for Employment, case notes, eligibility determinations from medical records, benefits-eligibility screening, and matching clients to job listings or training programs. What does not automate is the sustained, in-person relationship with a client navigating disability, injury, or mental illness — motivating someone through a failed placement, reading resistance in a home visit, negotiating accommodations with a skeptical employer. Certification (CRC) and state agency rules require a credentialed human on the case, but that shield is administrative rather than a hard professional license with personal liability.", "outlook": "Caseloads per counselor will rise as AI absorbs the plan-writing and documentation burden, so employment holds roughly flat while the job tilts toward face-to-face counseling, employer negotiation, and the hardest cases.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State VR agencies operate under the federal Rehabilitation Act; a Rehabilitation Services Administration or state-plan requirement that eligibility determinations and IPE approvals be signed by a CRC-credentialed counselor of record, with the determination voidable on appeal if unsigned, would convert the current administrative credential into an audit-enforced signature. Watch also state licensure bills for rehabilitation counselors (LPC/LRC scope statutes, e.g. states that folded rehab counseling into LPC licensure) that attach personal disciplinary liability for plan decisions.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "CRCC (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification) adding an explicit code-of-ethics provision making the certificant accountable for AI-generated assessments, vocational opinions, and case documentation they adopt — mirroring the ABA and state bar guidance on AI use — creating a discipline hook for unreviewed output.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if IPE drafting, case notes, medical-record eligibility abstraction and job-listing matching are absorbed by agency case-management systems, the residual day is home visits, motivational work after failed placements, employer accommodation negotiation, and crisis triage — the tier that has not automated. Watch state VR contracts with case-management vendors (e.g. Libera, Aware/AWARE-based systems) adding generative drafting modules.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Forensic and expert-witness vocational work — Social Security disability hearings, workers' comp loss-of-earning-capacity opinions, life-care planning — places the counselor's named opinion under cross-examination and Daubert scrutiny. Growth in the share of the occupation doing SSA VE testimony or comp-carrier vocational assessment, or an SSA/ALJ rule barring purely algorithmic vocational evidence, would raise this.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Only route is task-mix: if remote documentation work is stripped out, the remaining role concentrates in home visits, worksite job analysis, and on-site accommodation assessment (ergonomic measurement, physical demands observation). No policy lever raises this; it is residual composition.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium at 17 is near its practical ceiling and cannot rise much: most of this workforce is employed by state VR agencies and insurers, so the client is not the buyer and cannot express a preference for a human by paying more. Liability is the binding constraint — absent a real state license with personal exposure, the credential stays administrative and the score stays capped in the low teens." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 103840, "wage": 34860 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 106860, "wage": 35630 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 109040, "wage": 35950 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 100260, "wage": 37530 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 90310, "wage": 38560 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 82420, "wage": 39990 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 84750, "wage": 44040 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 88930, "wage": 46110 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 94740, "wage": 46850 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -8.8, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "healthcare-social-workers", "title": "Healthcare Social Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 71, "median_wage": 67880, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Active Learning", "Operation and Control" ] }, { "slug": "mental-health-and-substance-abuse-social-workers", "title": "Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 70, "median_wage": 60280, "overlap": 86, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Learning Strategies", "Persuasion", "Quality Control Analysis" ] }, { "slug": "marriage-and-family-therapists", "title": "Marriage and Family Therapists", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 74, "median_wage": 66940, "overlap": 85, "skills_to_close": [ "Active Listening", "Complex Problem Solving", "Active Learning", "Judgment and Decision Making" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }