Federal Disability Retirement: Inconsistencies

Selective extrapolation is the preferred method by which they justify a denial; a notation taken out of context from this particular day, or an offhand comment in response to a nurse’s question on a differentiated day where you may be feeling slightly better, etc.

Inconsistencies remain the harbinger of a denial of a FERS Medical Retirement application from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Yet, life is full of inconsistencies, and one can even argue that inconsistencies are the stamp of reality — that sincerity of life’s events are replete with contradictions and spectrums of bumps; that perfection is often a greater indication of artifice, instead of life’s reality that is actually lived.

That is the anomaly and the inconsistency itself: Perfection of circumstances is the real artifice; lack of perfection, the reality of living life.  Yet, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management reviews a Federal Disability Retirement application in the very opposite way; they search out the inconsistencies, then allege that those inconsistencies somehow rise to the level of artifice, when all along they merely reflect the reality of life itself, replete with inconsistencies that betray the lack of perfection which truth itself brings.

Thus, beware when the doctor or nurse writes in a note, “Feeling much better today” — for, although you still hobble about because of a broken body or are unable to focus or concentrate because of a psychiatric condition, the inconsistency between a singular notation and the reality reflected in one’s medical condition is the weaponized methodology of a Federal Agency which seeks out such inconsistencies as a basis for a denial.

As such, a Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker who seeks to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits should turn for advice and counsel to an experienced Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law to make sure that the inconsistencies may be minimized in the impact upon a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & USPS Disability Retirement: The Advantage of Persistence

If there are innate, underlying underpinnings of genetic inlays which provide for greater advantages in the evolutionary progression for those who consider survival of the fittest to be the teleological force behind man’s advancement, then the character trait of persistence must be one such data entry.  It is certainly a personality pre-condition for the meanest, most hostile and unrelenting individuals and organizations across the spectrum.  Like the wild dog with the unbreakable jawbone, persistence is that trait where relenting is not an option, and where right or wrong is not the standard which guides or otherwise influences the decision-making process of an individual who embraces a course of action.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is important to recognize and identify one’s friends, enemies, and those stuck somewhere in the middle, whether because of indifference or apathy; as well as the worth of avenues to pursue, those best left to abandonment, and what reactionary efforts should be engaged.

Federal Disability Retirement itself is a long, arduous administrative process which will require insistence, persistence and an intractable quantity of good, old fashioned stubbornness.  The identified adversary, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as one’s own Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service, are entities known for persistence already.  The Federal and Postal employee who takes on the Goliath of the Federal system, must be prepared to endure the persistence of the opponent.  This, despite the disadvantage of suffering from a medical condition, which is and continues to be the primary underlying basis of one’s Federal Disability Retirement claim, to begin with.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which allows for one’s future to be secured, and it is certainly worth “waging the good fight“. Recognition of what one must encounter; the greater advantages of the “opponent” in the fight; and the unrelenting nature of the bureaucracy; these are all elements which should be recognized at the outset, and to acknowledge that in preparing, formulating and filing for Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, there is always an evolutionary and genetic advantage in embracing the character trait of persistence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: The Value of Consistency

Consistency establishes validity; validation results in enhancement of credibility; and credibility prevails over minor errors and unintended oversights.  In analyzing a narrative, or engaging in a comparative analysis of two or more documents, it is the factual and historical consistency which allows for a conclusion of validated credibility. When a pattern of inconsistencies arise, suspicions of intentional misdirection beyond mere minor error, begins to tinge.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, or even CSRS Offset, the question of sequential order of documentary preparation is important.  Such relevance on this matter can be gleaned if the preparation is looked at retrospectively — not from the beginning of the process, but rather, from the perspective of OPM and how they review and determine cases.

With that perspective in mind, it is important to prepare and formulate one’s Federal Disability Retirement application based upon the appreciated value of consistency, and as consistency of statements, purpose, coordination of documentary support and delineated narrative of one’s disability and its impact upon one’s inability to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties is recognized, an effective Federal Disability Retirement application will be formulated with deliberative efficacy, and where retrospection through introspection will result in increasing the prospective chances of success.

Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Consistency

For over twelve years, the lack of intervening language contradicting the narrative as put forth by the NBC news anchor allowed for an intended image to prevail; it was only when language from other sources began to intersect, and to refute or otherwise unravel, the factual underpinnings as propounded by the individual, that retractions, admissions and apologies had to be declared and conveyed.  But for those other intervening statements, the language game as played by the news anchor would have continued to dominate, and history would have been remained unquestioned.

Language games, as described and discussed by Wittgenstein, are funny animals; there are, of course, the “facts” and the reality as first encountered in the objective world surrounding us; but once that encounter has occurred, what is left is the correspondence and communication through the medium of our language.  It is through language that past historical occurrences are communicated; and so long as the language used by all others do not contradict or otherwise make misfits of the language game one is playing, all goes well.

It is like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; the longer one stays at it, the greater the picture becomes entrenched; but once a piece of the greater puzzle manifests a misfit, or it becomes clear that there are either pieces missing or ones that don’t belong, then the entirety of the whole begins to crumble. We tend to place all of such occurrences under the general aegis of “consistency“.

Submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application by a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker has a parallel effect.  You begin with a factual basis:  the medical condition.  Beyond the factual basis, one must then begin to formulate a “Statement of Disability” as propounded on SF 3112A, where the description and delineation must include the logical connection to one’s positional requirements and why you cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position.

Here, consistency is crucial; how one characterizes the nexus between the medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job; the manner of one’s description; the consistency of application and bridge between the two elements of the case, the medical condition and the positional requirements of the job.

It is, ultimately, a language game precisely because a Federal Disability Retirement application is a presentation submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and whether the applicant for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the pieces of the puzzle which make for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application all must fit to make up the wholeness of that which matters most in any language game:  consistency.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset: Beyond the Disequilibrium of Life

Finding a balanced life after a disabling injury or medical condition with OPM Disability Retirement benefits

One can describe, in positive terms, the negative aspects of a thing, as in, “X is y,” etc. Or, as in the case often represented by Maimonides’ Negative Theology, one can elucidate by negation of perceived phenomena, leaving the subtraction of present realities to the imagination of the void.

Some may contend that the latter methodology of descriptive narrative adds nothing to knowledge; for, it is a negation of that which we know, and as King Lear reminded Cordelia, “Nothing will come of nothing:  speak again.”  But there is something beyond the nothingness of negation, is there not?  To negate is to expose the loss of something, the extracting and revealing of that which once was, became detached, and left as a void to be filled.

Thus can life present a semblance of equilibrium, where balance of family, work, community and value of living provides a coherence of a teleology of sorts; and when such coordination of essence in the core of one’s being gets out of whack (the term being of a very technical nature, used in esoteric philosophical discourse, as in, “He whacked away at the pages of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit”), there is a foreboding sense of loss and dispiritedness (again, the negation of a positive attribute).

Medical conditions tend to exonerate the negative theology of life.  Often, it is a subtraction beyond the chronic pain and debilitating nature of the medical condition itself.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue is often how, and to what extent, a persuasive description of one’s medical condition can purport to effectively represent the chronic and severe nature of one’s medical condition.

Some would contend that such an endeavor is nigh impossible to do; for, as the negation of equilibrium is the disequilibrium of life, so the mere subtraction of what we do and could do, does not necessarily present an accurate picture of one’s life.  And that is what is required, is it not?  Words have meaning; descriptive negations presume a context of knowledge already existent.

For the Federal and Postal employee who must present a compelling Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the conundrum of attempting to adequately describe one’s medical condition, its impact upon one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, and the further pervasive effect upon one’s personal life, is a conundrum of epic proportions.

To engage in negative theology in the descriptive delineation on SF 3112A is to presume a context which is not yet there; and to describe the disequilibrium brought upon the Federal or Postal employee resulting from a medical condition, is to encounter the wall that separates between words, meanings, and the true experiences of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: Ontological Priority

In philosophy, Ontology is a branch of metaphysics concerned with the reality of our world, of unraveling Being in its true form and nature, and the interaction of subject-to-object relationships and the order of priorities as described in the inter and intra connections between the “I” and “you” of this world.  As such, it must take into account the peculiar biological make-up of human beings, their perceptual world from a subjective viewpoint, as well as the Kantian paradigm of the “noumenal” world which is “out there”.

As a branch of metaphysics, it must take care and analyze and logically evaluate the inter and intra connections between the self and others, the objects which are engaged, other subjects, and all in the context of considering the profound impact of human subjectivity constrained within the perceptual universe of the human condition within the greater universe of Being.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, the profound impact of one’s medical condition upon the intra and inter delineations with the greater universe is one which is unsolicited and unasked:  the medical condition itself imposes a criteria of a required response.

How one describes the medical condition the Federal or Postal employee suffers from; what the impact is upon the capacity and ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job; the severity and extent of the medical condition; the anticipated prognosis; the future intended; all constitute the level of ontological priorities placed, and the “aboutness” of one’s medical condition and whether it is fully described in a persuasive fashion, will often determine the methodological success or failure of an OPM Disability Retirement application.

The encounter we have with the greater world is that which is “given”; how we describe and successfully delineate that encounter, is uniquely human.

The success or failure of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, depends upon the description of ontological priorities we place upon one’s narrative, legal argumentation and factual, evidentiary claims.  As such, one must always take care in formulating the compendium of fact, argument and analysis in presenting a Federal Disability Retirement application to OPM, by setting one’s ontological priorities in proper order.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire