As an attorney who represents Federal and Postal employees to “obtain” Federal Disability Retirement benefits, it is important to make distinctions within the process of securing the Federal benefit: while it is important to solicit and secure the medical opinion of the treating doctor, the resistance from such doctors — if in fact there is any resistance at all — most often comes about because the doctor doesn’t understand the “process”.
Doctors are medical providers. They are in the practice of medicine because they believe in applying the science of medicine to help their patients get better. Helping someone obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS is not part of “practicing medicine”. Yet, in many ways, it is. It is part of practicing medicine because, to allow the patient to continue to work in a job which he or she cannot perform, will only exacerbate and worsen the medical condition.
Further, doctors never like to “disable” their patients. To counter this medical opinion, it is important to clearly inform the doctor what the process of Federal disability retirement is and is not. It is the job of the attorney hired to represent a Federal or Postal worker to obtain disability retirement benefits, to clearly and cogently explain the entire process to the treating doctor. That is what I do, at the very start, in representing my clients.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Actors - The Doctor, OPM Disability Application - SF 3112C Physician's Statement for CSRS and FERS | Tagged: applicant's physician, attorney experienced in dealing with fers disability retirement claims, attorney that helps injured and ill federal workers, attorney that will handle federal disability for stress, blogs owcp and opm disability issues, convincing your physician for help during application process, csrs medical retirement, disability retirement fers, doctors attitude towards the injured federal employee, doctors federal disability application form, explaining the federal/postal disability process to your treating doctor, fed disability owcp, federal agencies and secop doctors, federal employee disability, federal employee disability lawyer, federal employee retirement system doctors, federal government medical retirement, federal or postal employees and the reluctant doctors, federal workers disability, federal workmans comp and opm retirement, FERS disability retirement, fers disability retirement facts, help filing federal disability retirement, helping your doctor to help you in your fers disability application, medical retirement for postal employee separated from service, medical retirement for postal workers under national reassessment program, national reassessment program post office, no referee examination by taking the federal disability retirement route, no secop doctors in federal or postal disability retirement, physician's hesitation to help comes from unfamiliarity, physician's statement of disability, physician's statements in an OPM disability case, post office owcp disability, securing cooperation from your doctors is very important for usps disability, support to a physician's medical narrative, the federal disability attorney and your treating physician, tips for dealing with your treating physician, united states postal service disability, usps disability insurance, USPS disability retirement, ways in which an attorney can help to educate your physician for help, what if your physician won't help you to get disability retirement?, when doctors don't understand the federal employees disability process, why physicians hesitate to help the postal worker?, why some doctors hesitate to "disable" a disabled federal worker?, your federal disability attorney can help to secure your physician's cooperation, your treating doctors | 1 Comment »
Federal & Postal Service Disability Retirement: Personal v. Objective
Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a personal matter. It is personal precisely because it is considered as an admission of a disability; it goes to the heart of what a person does in life — one’s livelihood, one’s means of support; and it goes to the perception in our society of the “worth” of an individual — financial worth, productive worth, worth in terms of the ability to support a family, and worth in terms of one’s contribution to society. Because it is so personal, it is difficult to “objectively” assess and evaluate a disability retirement claim, by the individual who is thinking about filing for such a benefit.
That is often why it is important to have an attorney represent an individual who is considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits. Often, when I am hired at the second or third Stage of the process, I read the initial submissions of the client, and find that the “personal” has indeed overtaken the “objective”, precisely because the very subject of the disability retirement process — the applicant — had to undertake the very personal process himself/herself. Such personal subjectivity cannot see beyond the very personal nature of the medical condition, and when that happens, it is almost too personal for the OPM representative to make an objective assessment of the case.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Actors - The Applicant, OPM Disability Actors - The Attorney, OPM Disability Process - 1st Stage: OPM Disability Application, The Job of a Federal Disability Attorney | Tagged: a rational approach to opm disability retirement, an emotional vs. reasoned personal account of disability, an objective evaluation of your opm disability claim, attorney federal disability, blogs owcp and opm disability issues, civil service disability retirement, CSRS disability retirement federal attorney, describing a medical tragedy without too much emotionalism, disability retirement in the post office, emotional comments won't always help to get opm application approved, federal civil service disability, federal employee and its acceptance of being disabled, federal employee disability, federal employee disability benefits, federal employee medical retirement, FERS disability retirement, FERS medical retirement, fighting feelings of worthlessness during the opm disability application, filing for usps disability, focusing on medical substantive issues not emotional problems, getting rid of emotional baggage during fers disability application, helping the opm disability specialist to evaluate your claim objectively, helping the opm representative to assess your disability claim, how to get approved for federal employee disability benefits, keeping emotions under control will help an opm disability applicant, keeping your tone cool and rational during application, Maintaining an Objective Perspective in a Disability Case, making rational arguments along with sound medical evidence, no work available for injured postal workers, not getting too personal during the applicant's statement of disability, nrp and defending injured postal workers, OPM disability retirement, OPM objective methodology, owcp disability retirement really is usually meant "opm disability retirement", postal service disability retirement, presenting a personal disability matter objectively, problems with personal disability retirement statements in opm application, rational perspective into the fed workers' medical condition, story of human tragedy, taking lwop for owcp medical condition, the fine balance between rational and emotional factors, the human side of a disability story, top federal disability retirement attorney, us post office disability attorney, usps rehab employees, value of a human being not defined by disabilities, when personal emotions overtake rational thoughts during application process, when the opm applicant can't handle the disability paperwork, why it can be difficult for the opm disability applicant to prove his claim | Leave a comment »