OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Value of Effort

Employers will often declare that merely “showing up” is half the battle; if so, showing up on time will more often than not complete the victory of that metaphorical battle.  The value of work is likely a “learned” response; in human beings, it does not appear to be an innate, natural gene which dominates.

In the animal kingdom, one often sees the male lion lazing around while the female of the species goes out and hunts for food.  The female lion — or “lioness” — appears the more athletic and quicker; somehow, that large mane and overdone hairdo seems to slow down the guys in the bunch.

But as necessity is the mother of invention, those documentaries of the wild sometimes capture the males putting in the effort when hunger pains prompt the value of such expenditure of stamina, blundering about in a sudden spurt of energy previously reflected with flies buzzing around the eyes of a sleeping giant.

Yes, there is value in effort, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows you to continue in your career of choice in the Federal Government, it is often the case that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will attempt to subvert that effort expended in trying to obtain a Federal Disability Retirement.

The question then becomes a contest between two entities expending effort: On the one side, the vast bureaucracy of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in trying to deny you your benefits, and on the other side — you.  The value of effort — then of greater effort — may be in retaining the services of an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, where the value of effort is seen in the knowledge, application and citation of the relevant legal precedents which need to be invoked in order to fulfill the value of effort.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and see whether or not the value of effort can be concretized in the proper recitation of the law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement from OPM: The Triangle

Aristotle believed that the three components of a successful argument required: Logos; Ethos; Pathos.  Logos — the potency of a logical, coherent structure.  Ethos — the character and reputation of the speaker who would deliver the argument.  Pathos — the “emotional” element in the argument to be made.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, perhaps the Pathos is already there — of the medical condition itself which has devastated your capacity to continue in your chosen career.  But that is not enough to persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to approve your Federal Disability Retirement application.

You will still need the other two components — a strong legal argument which is coherent and powerful, and the reputation of a FERS Disability Lawyer who is a proven advocate for your Federal Disability Retirement claim.  Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer today and consider the triangle of a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Stress of the Moment

From a distance, we can all handle stress.  It is that time and removal from the moment that makes all of the difference, is it not?  Afterwards — after the explosive anger, the sudden quietude or the paralyzing fear — we reflect and wonder as to what created such a stressful reaction.  Or, years later, one may recall that it was a moment of “something”, but rarely remember the exact details as to what prompted or triggered it.  It is often the combination of multitudes of factors: Too little sleep; overworked; a sense of isolation; a feeling that no one around you really cares, etc.

Then, when a medical condition enters upon the scene, all other factors tend to become exaggerated, magnified and exacerbated.  One’s health and deteriorating medical condition always adds to the stress.  It is like the old adage about a fish not realizing that it is swimming in water; when we have our health, we barely recognize it; when we lose it, it becomes the focal animus of our daily lives.  Without our health, there is no “stress of the moment”; rather, every moment is a stressful experience.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is time to consider filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to reverse the course taken — that of going back to experiencing the stress of the moment, as opposed to living a life of unending, unendurable and eternal stresses throughout each and every waking moment.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The Essence of Relating

How is it that a human being — an entity quite unique among species that cannot relate — can understand, comprehend and even become comfortable with the anomalies of life’s encounters?

Other species seem to weave among and amidst their surroundings with familiar repose; certainly, intelligent dogs recognize a new couch, an unfamiliar visitor or a different dog food introduced; but in the wilds, it is the familiarity of the surroundings that make for comfort in life.

For human beings, how does one relate to the strangeness of an entity — of an alien; of a science fiction novel that introduces a world beyond; of another culture that defies every normative structure of one’s own world?  It is, more often than not, by analogies and metaphors, is it not?

We begin by “discovering” the similarities — that something is “like” the thing we know because they share characteristics x, y or z; and it is through the familiarity of similarities by which we begin to formulate an idea of understanding, then of comprehension, and finally of a feeling of comfort.

Similarly [sic], how does one convey the idea of pain to another person who has had very little experience of it?  What if that “other person” has never experienced pain?

Yes, yes, the rebuttal would be that everyone has experienced it — even if it was a scratch, a dog bite, a paper cut, etc.  But as pain is subjective, there are certainly those who have had limited experiences of a subjective phenomena, and certainly many who have never experienced a spectrum of excruciating, debilitating pain.  Or how about psychiatric conditions — of Major Depression so overwhelming, or Anxiety so paralyzing, or panic attacks so debilitating that the condition itself prevents a person from being able to perform one’s work?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that an application for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessary next step, it is the essence of relating — of how to formulate ones narrative in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A) — that becomes of foundational importance in the success or failure of the application itself.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law before moving forward; for, the essence of relating requires not only the existence of a medical condition and its impact upon one’s ability or inability to perform one’s job, but more than that, it requires the ability to convey an understanding of the facts, the law and how the two intersect.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Foundations

Foundations are important to every sound endeavor — or is such a statement a mere tautology of sorts, as “soundness” must by necessity involve a proper foundation, and foundations are by definition the basis of soundness?

We all recognize that, and expect that it is an universal principle; otherwise, we would stand over the constructio1n of every building, house or warehouse we entered, scour the blueprints and interrogate every worker having anything to do with the project before entering its premises.

That being the case, why do we so often disregard that principle when formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset?

Think about it: What is the “foundation” of a Federal Disability Retirement case?  Yes — it is the “disability”; otherwise, without it, there is no “case” to file.  And how is a “medical disability” proven to exist, and more importantly, proven to have a “nexus” with the Federal employee’s or Postal worker’s job?

And, yet, most Federal and Postal employees formulating and preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application simply drop off the SF 3112C (the Physician’s Statement Form), and expect that the medical doctor, the psychologist, the therapist or the chiropractor will follow the minutiae of the instructions on SF 3112C, and then submit it along with the rest of the application and forms without nary a glance at the content and substance of the submission.

Clear, concise and perfected guidance provided to the physician or other medical professionals establishes a strong foundation for every OPM Disability Retirement application, and if you — the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker — have consulted with any attorney who does not state with a straightforward “yes” as to providing that sort of guidance and direction in formulating and establishing the very foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, you may want to reconsider who is advising you, who is providing counsel to you, and who is helping you formulate the foundations necessary for an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Weekend Survival

The segmentation of time may be artificial; the rhythms of life, are not.  The 7-day week, 30-day month (give or take a couple here and there) and the 12-month cycle constitute human constructs that impose a rigid system of divisions based upon productivity, leisure, an admixture of both (isn’t it universal that Saturdays are spent in doing chores otherwise unattended to during the week, and Sunday is that respite and escape in total destitution of depleted dreariness?) and then a reset button pushed and the beginning of the cycle all over again.

Yet, while the system itself is based upon a conceptually artificial construct, the rhythmic underpinning of nature that glides above and beneath on a daily, quiet but consistent basis remains unperturbed.

That is why Daylight Savings Time makes grouches of us all — it is another artificial construct that jolts everyone from the natural rhythms of monotonous apathy twice a year, and breaks up that flow of biodynamic symbiosis between the planetary rotations, the daily sunrise and sunset, and the body’s reaction to a natural order within the constructs of an unnatural way of living.  The only compensation we feel grateful for is that extra hour of sleep that we are “given” in the Fall — only to have it stripped mercilessly and robbed from us in the Spring.

Thank God for the weekend — those two days of respite and leisure; of restorative rest and a quietude away from the mad dash of work and productivity; and we believe that we owe to the gods our lives and sacrifice our health for those pittance of days that are given to us.  But what are those 2 days worth?

Half of one is given up to do those things that we had no time to do during the five days of labor; the other half, spent in frozen immobility in front of a screen that blasts frightful images both from news of the “real” world as well as stories that are supposedly “entertaining”.  Then, with the one day remaining, we try and compensate for the exhaustion from the previous 5+1, only to wake up the following morning to engage the rush of the work-week that suffers and harms.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition becomes a trial of survival during the week in order to make it to the weekend just to survive, it is worse because — not only is the “natural” rhythm interrupted by the medical condition itself — days, weeks and months all meld and melt into a singular whole of survival and consternation of life’s trials.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be the only option remaining in order to re-order the rhythm lost in the daily struggle to reach that weekend survival where the cycle of life’s natural rhythm has been shattered by the trauma of a chronic medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

The Devaluation of the Federal Employee with Disabilities

Countries engage it deliberately with its currencies; economic circumstances force it based upon fluctuating market volatility; and the basic principles in capitalism of supply and demand will often expect it.

Currencies are never stable indexes despite the best attempts by countries to manage and control their economies; the fact is, in this interconnected world of global economic entanglement, devaluation of worth can occur overnight, just after the soft breathing of nightfall overtakes, but before the dawn of first light when the halls of stock markets in faraway colonnades lined in symmetrical facades open their doors for the business of commodity markets.

Fortunes can be made, and lost, overnight; but the devaluation of that which implicates worth, can just as easily fall upon the human soul.  Medical conditions tend to do that.  We exchange, trade, value and appraise based upon a commodity’s supply, demand, desire and greed of want; but when it comes to human beings, though we deny such callous approaches, the encounter with such baseness still prevails.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, facing devaluation is nothing out of the ordinary when a medical condition hits.  Once the Federal or Postal worker suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the avenue of choices becomes starkly clear:  One can try to hang on; one can walk away with nothing to show for those many years of dedicated and loyal service; or one can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

It is the last of the tripartite alternatives which is the best option, and one which can secure a future for the Federal or Postal employee.  For, ultimately, the whole point of devaluation in paradigms of economic theory, is to stabilize the currency for future years; it is the experience of short-term suffering to attain long-term calm.  Economics is merely a microcosmic reflection of a macro-global perspective, and application of parallel principles are relevant to situations which might otherwise appear foreign.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service engage in devaluation, just as governments do, when the worth of the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is seen in terms of productivity for the moment, and not for the long-term benefit gained for the future.

We live in a world of short selling trades; everything is seen for the immediacy of gain; but fortunately for the Federal or Postal worker who must contend with the attitude and approach of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service in viewing the devaluation of the worker based upon productivity, the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is one which is available, attractive, and allowable for those who are eligible to prepare, formulate and file for the benefit.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: Form and Content

The complexity of the administrative procedure generally identified as “OPM Disability Retirement” is one replete with complicated forms to complete, sequence of procedures which are often confusing, and content of conundrums, followed by wait times which are frustrating, at best.

The spectrum of problems and concerns which arise throughout the process can be daunting and overwhelming. For the Federal employee or the Postal worker who suffers from a chronic medical condition, such that chronic pain, profound fatigue, the high distractibility from pain and discomfort; the impact upon one’s focus, concentration, and capacity to be attentive; with features of variegated residuals from chronic migraine headaches; or perhaps the psychiatric impact of symptoms from depression, anxiety, panic attacks, Bipolar Disorder, etc. — the balance of life which one must maintain, with the demands of work or the loss of such capacity to work, combined with the added pressures inherent in the preparation and completion of a Federal Disability Retirement application, can in their compound aggregate, be paralyzing.

The Standard Forms themselves can be confusing, puzzling and the complexity of the requirements can have a procrastinating effect upon the Federal or Postal employee contemplating filing. The content of what needs to be stated, what should be included, what meets the legal requirement for eligibility for a Federal Disability Retirement application — all together can be the basis for a successful application or a failed endeavor from the start. Standard Form 3112 involves both the applicant (the Federal employee and the Postal worker) as well as the agency. SF 3107 (for those under FERS) and SF 2801 (for those under CSRS) also require involvement by both the agency and the applicant, but are more informational than perspective/opinion-oriented. But both sets of forms must be completed.

Form and content comprise the crux of everything in life, from simple organic compounds to complex bureaucratic procedures. It is the dualism which constitutes the core of life’s mysteries, and this is no less true in preparing, formulating and filing for FERS & CSRS disability retirement benefits through OPM, whether one is under FERS or CSRS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire