Federal Employee Disability Retirement Process: The Extrapolated You

You have a whole life, an entire story — a “novel” of sorts, with chapters beginning with your birth, paragraphs describing your accomplishments and sentences denoting your character.  A friend, neighbor or acquaintance comes along and picks up this novel, opens it to a random page and reads one sentence.  Perhaps that sentence, or partial-sentence, reads as follows: “…and people thought that his behavior was unacceptable.”

That person walks away with this single facet, not having read the rest of the novel, or perhaps not caring, or even worse — of wanting to hold onto that singular, “out-of-context” extrapolation of an impression wrongly held.  For, in the very next sentence, the paragraph reads: “It turns out that his behavior was entirely appropriate, and everyone who had thought otherwise had to admit to this basic fact.”

Such is a parallel scenario with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in reviewing a FERS applicant for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — for, not only does OPM only see the extrapolated you based upon your FERS Disability Retirement application, but moreover, they are looking to selectively take extrapolated portions of your narrative as a disabled person, and are glad to take things out of context and deny your claim.

How to counter this?  By arguing and applying the Law.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin at the outset to rebut and preemptively reply by citing the relevant law in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Employee Disability Retirement application and present the “you” as more than the extrapolated you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Coherent Story

What makes it so, and when it isn’t, can anything make up for its lack in order to bring it around?

The historical myth of the early days of moviemaking is that the audience needed to be shown certain fundamental scenes in order to prevent any confusion and loss of interest — i.e., to start a scene with a character entering or exiting a doorway in order to “set the scene” of coherence, etc.  Otherwise, people were caught wondering how a character arrived at a certain place to begin with, and became distracted from engaging in the fantasyland of a fictional world in watching a movie.

Whether or not this is true — and there are some who doubt this, given that novels and short stories have always allowed for scenes, conversations and topics to jump from place to place without “reinventing the proverbial wheel” — nevertheless, every story hinges upon parts which make up a coherent whole.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the coherent story must be formulated, narrated and conveyed in a manner which is both true, valid and persuasive.  Moreover, it must “fit into” the rules, regulations and statutory authorities which govern Federal Disability Retirement eligibility criteria.  How to tell “one’s story” on SF 3112A, the Applicant’s Statement of Disability, is critical in formulating a successful strategy in the proper preparation and submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Consult with an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to begin to tell your “coherent story” — the one that will captivate the “audience” at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Successful Equation

Remember those days in school when — not only did you have to know how to figure out the answer to a question — you actually had to know what the right “equation” was?  Without the proper equation, you could never solve the “problem”.  Yes, yes, you could do some tinkering around the edges — of “figuring out” in some unique way, but ultimately the only way to solve the issue was by rote memorization (something not required, anymore, in this day and age of computers and smartphones) of that mathematical statement on the near side of the equal sign.

If only life were like that — of simply memorizing the equation, then proceeding forward and solving every problem.  But that’s the nub of it all, isn’t it?

Life brings forth encounters and circumstances, “problems” and difficulties that refuse to respond to an equation pre-planned for the vicissitudes of life’s misgivings.  Are mathematicians better at adapting and responding to life’s travails?  Or, do philosophy majors and those who embrace dictums to live by (e.g., that all of life is a “river” and we can never step into the same one twice, and other such Chopra-like platitudes that carry us through difficult times) better sail through the trials that everyone inevitably faces?

The fact is, equations are often best left for mere theoretical applications, and rarely conform to the changes of life’s encounters.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the search for an “equation” in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application should begin with a consultation with an FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

While there may not be a pre-set equation to follow, there are certainly important steps to take in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Adapting to Change

Survival of the species depends upon it; the paradigm of evolutionary theory mandates it; and the human propagation for advancement thrives through it.

Change is difficult.  It was once believed that the malleability of youth allowed for greater resistance to a damaged psyche; yet, from the plethora of late-night confessions, it has become clear that divorce and family divisions left residual scars upon children no matter how “friendly” the split-up was, no matter how much love, co-parenting support and so-called theories of “if I’m happy, you’re happy” blather was pasted thick upon the self-justifying reasons given; in the end, the trauma of change, upheaval, disruption and interruption have their lasting effects upon the shaken foundations wrought by the earthquakes of human existence.

Change; how we respond to it; what adaptive measures are taken; where the vulnerabilities appear; and the manner, timing and susceptibility to reverberations of lasting consequences — they all take their toll, don’t they?

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, change is inevitable, and adapting to change — a necessity.

But, then, adapting to change has already been a reality, if one pauses and thinks about it — to the change in one’s health through the chronic and debilitating medical condition; the need to have adapted to the growing sense of urgency as the medical condition has worsened over time; these, and many more changes have already forced the Federal and Postal employee contemplating further changes to adapt at each step of the way.  But that “final step” — of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application — is an important one, and to make the best of the changes that are inevitable, it is a prudent idea to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire