Before even thinking about starting the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS, it is important for the patient/applicant to approach his or her doctor and get an initial commitment of support. For, ultimately, the most essential lynchpin of a disability retirement application hangs on the support of a doctor — from the first and initial stage, all the way to the Merit Systems Protection Board (where live telephone testimony may be necessary). The “patient” needs to approach the doctor with sensitivity. It is probably not even a good idea to talk about anything beyond the first stage of the process — instead, the focus should be about how “support” for a disability retirement application is actually part of the rehabilitation and healing process of medical treatment. For, ultimately, a disability annuitant under FERS or CSRS is not asking to be “totally disabled” by the doctor (and, indeed, most doctors do not want to release their patients into the retirement “pasture” of full disability); rather, it is simply a medical support of reasoning that a particular patient is no longer a “good fit” for a particular kind of job. Don’t scare the doctor off with a view of the “long process”; rather, the initial commitment is all that is needed — for the first stage of the process.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Application, Appeals, and Other Medical Documentation Submitted To the OPM, OPM Disability Application and/or Process | Tagged: advising your treating doctor about your opm disability application, appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board, applicant's physician, convincing your physician for help during application process, disability owcp, disability retirement federal government, doctor and patient relationship, doctor information to win a federal employee disability claim, doctor's opinion should be sound rational and logical, doctors attitude towards the injured federal employee, duty status report, employees physical incapacity to work, essential elements of jobs, federal disability postal employee, federal disability retirement is not total disability, federal employee disability doctor, federal employee's physician's statement of disability, federal law enforcement injury illness, federal postal workers going out on disability, FERS disability retirement, guide to federal disability law, how to approach your doctor for help?, importance of the narrative report on opm disability, inability to perform one's job, legal requirements of the medical narrative report, medical condition must last one year, nexus between medical condition and essential elements, opm disability as part of the rehabilitation and healing process, OPM disability retirement, personal injury in a federal agency, physician's statement of disability, physician's statements in an OPM disability case, postal disability retirement is not full disability, postal service disability retirement, postal workers with personal injuries, providing medical opinions for a postal disability report, securing commitment from your treating doctor, SF 3112C Physician's Statement, strong and irrefutable medical evidence, supportive doctor needed a opm disability retirement claim, the most important requirement for opm disability retirement, time to change careers, USPS disability retirement, when the federal job is not longer a good fit for federal employee, writing a narrative report for federal employee patients, your treating doctors
