OPM Disability Retirement: The Walking Anomaly

The identity of a person is represented by a composite of memories held, present activities engaged, and future endeavors planned, thus bringing into a complex presence the times of past, present and anticipated future.  It is because of this walking anomaly — of not just an entity living in the present, but of someone who possesses the retentive capacity of memories past, and plans made and being generated for future actions — that the complexity of the human condition can never be fully grasped.

For the individual, therefore, who begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition or disability interferes with the delicate balance of the tripartite composite, the fear of destruction of present circumstances, and diminished ability for future progress, is what complicates matters, in addition to the capacity to remember how things were, which only exacerbates one’s anxiety and angst, in addition to the medical condition itself. It is like being caught eternally in the middle of a three-day weekend: one is saddened by the day already passed; one anticipates an additional day, but the knowledge of the diminishing present makes for realization that the future is merely a bending willow in the winds of change, inevitably able to be swept aside.

For the Federal employee or the Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, it is that recognition of past performances and accolades, of accomplishments and successes, combined with present potentialities yet unfulfilled, which makes for a tragedy of intersecting circumstances.  Filing for Federal Disability benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the Postal worker is under FERS or CSRS, should not, however, diminish the hope for the future.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits allows for the impacted Federal or Postal worker to receive an annuity, and continue to remain productive and plan for the future. It is the solution for many Federal employees and Postal workers who are too young to retire, and have invested too much to simply “walk away” with nothing to show for the time of Federal service already measured.

In the end, Federal Disability Retirement may not be the best option, but the only viable option available, and for the walking anomaly known as man, OPM Disability benefits may be the methodology to complete that unfulfilled potentiality yet to be achieved.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Against Reason

One can put in all of the necessary and requisite effort into preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, obtain a comprehensive medical narrative report with supportive office and treatment notes, verifying MRIs and other diagnostic evidence, follow the informational guidelines from various research sources — and provide a compelling case based upon rational and reasoned argumentation — and still get a denial from the Office of Personnel Management.  

This happens often enough, and one must conclude that, even when a Federal Disability Retirement application is prepared with the utmost of care and effort, a decision of denial can be issued against reason, or the reasons provided are selectively chosen and manufactured.  It is therefore well to understand the entirety of a Federal Disability Retirement process as necessarily involving multiple stages, with internal checks and balances to ensure the “fairness” of the administrative procedure.

Thus, the first two stages of the process (the Initial Stage; then the Reconsideration Stage) are internally reviewed by the Office of Personnel Management.  The Third and Fourth Stage of the process (an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board; a Petition for Full Review) may be considered as “administrative judicial review” stages.  Then, an appeal to the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.  

Each stage allows for a “check” upon the other stages of the process, and by imposing the right of the disability retirement applicant to access such “checks”, it allows for the “balance” of the process — thereby (hopefully) negating and nullifying what may have initially been an irrationally-based decision.  

As Western Culture has a history of recognizing the power of rationality, it is well that an institutionalized process of “checks and balances” attempts to supersede legal decisions which go against reason.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire