Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Planning

A common consensus among those who contemplate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is that it is an unplanned event, and one which required decisions which shortened the career goals of the Federal or Postal employee.  Such an unplanned event, however, should not be left for lack of planning of the event itself — of preparing, formulating and filing for the Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Thus, a distinction should be made:  yes, the fact of the medical condition, and its unplanned impact upon one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, thereby cutting short the Federal or Postal career of the individual, is quite often something which is unexpected and beyond one’s control.

Once the realization that it is necessary to  file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM becomes apparent, however, one should not simply act in a manner which compounds the problems of lack of planning.  At that point, planning is essential to the entire endeavor:  the garnering of support from the medical community; the persuasive conversation which one must have with one’s treating medical provider; the decision of which medical conditions to include, how to state it, what to state; the preparation of the coordinated aspects of each of the strands of a Federal Disability Retirement application — these need to be planned for, in order to increase the chances of success at each stage of the Federal Disability Retirement process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire