Federal Disability Retirement: Avoidance of the Close Encounter

Ultimately, preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS from the Office of Personnel Management requires a “setting aside” of a direct encounter with one’s acknowledgment and concession that one has an intractable medical condition which is directly impacting one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job.  It is to come face to face with the realization that the hard-fought career goals, the years of schooling and education; the overcoming of the inevitable learning curve during one’s youth and inception of a career — are ending not as a result of actualizing one’s dreams and goals, but because of an intermediate cause:  a medical condition.  

The struggle to continue working despite the chronic pain or deteriorating cognitive capabilities is the natural attempt to prolong that which one worked so diligently to strive towards; but at a certain point, such a struggle to continue working despite the increasing manifestation of the medical symptomatologies becomes an “avoidance” issue — of avoiding having to face the inevitable decision-making process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.

At some point, however, prolonging the avoidance issue for too long leads to the inevitability of a flashpoint — of an emergency resulting from a crisis, where the Agency itself will propose an adverse action, or the medical condition itself will dictate the terms and conditions which necessitate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  Avoidance will force the close encounter; too long of an avoidance will make the encounter not just close, but a direct impact requiring emergency actions.  

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire