Often, when a client receives the finalized disability retirement packet, I receive a response that goes something like: “I didn’t realize I was so bad off, until I read through the prepared packet.” While I have not personally experienced the medical conditions of my many clients over the years, I have the experience of having spoken to them, and have learned about the symptoms, the words which best describe the pain, the impact, and the symptoms which are experienced on a daily basis.
That is why it is an absurdity for the Office of Personnel Management, for example, to continually and redundantly refer to Fibromyalgia cases as ones with symptoms which “wax and wane”. Or, with severe Major Depression, Anxiety and panic attacks, the Office of Personnel Management will systematically deny many such claims by stating that there is no “objective medical evidence” to show that the individual is unable to continue to provide efficient service in a cognitive-intensive job. It is the job of the attorney, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, to be the one who projects the experience of the disabled Federal or Postal employee. The attorney does not have to personally experience the medical condition in order to properly and descriptively convey the impact of the symptoms and debilitating conditions; however, it is helpful if the attorney has had a wide range of experience — by having spoken to multiple individuals over the years who have personally experienced such conditions. In this way, the attorney can obtain the experience to express the medical experience of the applicant.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
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OPM Disability Retirement 
Federal & Postal Service Disability Retirement: Personal v. Objective
Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a personal matter. It is personal precisely because it is considered as an admission of a disability; it goes to the heart of what a person does in life — one’s livelihood, one’s means of support; and it goes to the perception in our society of the “worth” of an individual — financial worth, productive worth, worth in terms of the ability to support a family, and worth in terms of one’s contribution to society. Because it is so personal, it is difficult to “objectively” assess and evaluate a disability retirement claim, by the individual who is thinking about filing for such a benefit.
That is often why it is important to have an attorney represent an individual who is considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits. Often, when I am hired at the second or third Stage of the process, I read the initial submissions of the client, and find that the “personal” has indeed overtaken the “objective”, precisely because the very subject of the disability retirement process — the applicant — had to undertake the very personal process himself/herself. Such personal subjectivity cannot see beyond the very personal nature of the medical condition, and when that happens, it is almost too personal for the OPM representative to make an objective assessment of the case.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: OPM Disability Actors - The Applicant, OPM Disability Actors - The Attorney, OPM Disability Process - 1st Stage: OPM Disability Application, The Job of a Federal Disability Attorney | Tagged: a rational approach to opm disability retirement, an emotional vs. reasoned personal account of disability, an objective evaluation of your opm disability claim, attorney federal disability, blogs owcp and opm disability issues, civil service disability retirement, CSRS disability retirement federal attorney, describing a medical tragedy without too much emotionalism, disability retirement in the post office, emotional comments won't always help to get opm application approved, federal civil service disability, federal employee and its acceptance of being disabled, federal employee disability, federal employee disability benefits, federal employee medical retirement, FERS disability retirement, FERS medical retirement, fighting feelings of worthlessness during the opm disability application, filing for usps disability, focusing on medical substantive issues not emotional problems, getting rid of emotional baggage during fers disability application, helping the opm disability specialist to evaluate your claim objectively, helping the opm representative to assess your disability claim, how to get approved for federal employee disability benefits, keeping emotions under control will help an opm disability applicant, keeping your tone cool and rational during application, Maintaining an Objective Perspective in a Disability Case, making rational arguments along with sound medical evidence, no work available for injured postal workers, not getting too personal during the applicant's statement of disability, nrp and defending injured postal workers, OPM disability retirement, OPM objective methodology, owcp disability retirement really is usually meant "opm disability retirement", postal service disability retirement, presenting a personal disability matter objectively, problems with personal disability retirement statements in opm application, rational perspective into the fed workers' medical condition, story of human tragedy, taking lwop for owcp medical condition, the fine balance between rational and emotional factors, the human side of a disability story, top federal disability retirement attorney, us post office disability attorney, usps rehab employees, value of a human being not defined by disabilities, when personal emotions overtake rational thoughts during application process, when the opm applicant can't handle the disability paperwork, why it can be difficult for the opm disability applicant to prove his claim | Leave a comment »