Remember to not spite yourself, especially when it comes to financial considerations. If your medical disability is forcing you to take excessive LWOP, it might be better to go “cold turkey” and stay completely out on LWOP while you file for disability retirement benefits. This is because, once you get your disability retirement application approved, you will be paid “back pay” in a lump-sum form, back to the last day of your pay, at the 60% rate from your last day of pay forward for the first 12 months.
Thus, if you work only 2 days out of the week, and you take LWOP for the other 3 days, you are losing 20% of pay, because were you to go out on LWOP, instead of being paid 40% of your salary (2 out of the 5 days), you would be getting back-pay for essentially 3 out of the 5 days (60%). On the other hand, don’t go out on LWOP, then after 4 or 5 months, go back to work for a week — because in that instance, you will never recover the 4 or 5 months of LWOP, because the “last day of pay” will have been paid to you when you went back to work. While all of this may be a bit confusing, it is essential to your financial health and consideration when entering the complex process of Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: LWOP and Sick Leave in OPM Disability, Miscellaneous, OPM Disability Actors - The Applicant, Post-Application Issues | Tagged: federal owcp, federal government disability, federal injured ill workers, federal workers comp lawyer, FERS medical retirement, filing a csrs disability claim, filing for OPM disability retirement, financial considerations, Financial Survival During a Disability - Before and After the OPM Disability Application, getting annual leave to recover from injuries, light duty in the Postal Service, limited duty in the Post Office, long lwop disability reasons, long lwop for sickness is not separation under opm disability law, lwop, LWOP in federal disability retirement, lwop opm, non job related injures or illnesses, opm sick leave, rules for filing medical disability with the USPS, sick leave in OPM disability, stress when filing for federal disability retirement, temporary position, us federal employees filing for disability, usps disability filing, usps lwop | 3 Comments »
