Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Workplace Stress

Stress symptoms are not always visible

Stress is that pernicious aura, neither visible nor definable, with a spectrum of tolerance particularized by individuals, and which pervades silently and invisibly but for the manifestations through physical reactions. It can lead to both physical ailments as well as psychiatric turmoil, requiring medical management ranging from prescription medications to hospitalization.

Who among us knows where the “breaking point” is, for a coworker, Supervisor, etc.? Are there signs of stress where one could have predicted the actions or reactions of another? As a silent killer of incremental gnawing, stress impacts different people in variegated ways, and can often be the primary foundation for multiple medical conditions, but rarely diagnosed as such.

OPM may dismiss your stress claim as being situational: “But it only happens at work” (they may argue)

Stress in the workplace, of course, carries over into personal lives, and conversely, people who experience exponential quantification of stress in one’s personal life, will carry it into the professional arena despite monumental efforts to contain it.  Stress can be the exacerbating force in compounding and complicating already-existing medical conditions.

While stress itself, standing alone, becomes a problematic issue in which to base a Federal Disability Retirement application upon, because it points to the potential of being “situational” and therefore contained within a particular work environment; nevertheless, stress can be, and often is, a part of any Federal or Postal Disability Retirement submission.

Federal and Postal employees can become eligible for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, if it can be shown that one’s medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

Stress may even affect the way we present our legal cases

What role stress plays in such an application; how it is characterized; the manner in which it is presented; where in the compendium of medical conditions it should be stated — all are important in the complex narrative presentation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, for any Federal or Postal employee who is considering filing for the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement.

In the end, however stress is described, one thing is certain: it plays a large role in everyday lives, and pervades as oxygen and toxins alike permeate the atmosphere of the air we live in and of which we breathe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Issues

The issues upon which the Office of Personnel Management denies a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS are normally rather limited.  There are recurrent themes, and some of the more prevalent ones are:  insufficient medical documentation; issues concerning accommodations and attempted accommodations by the Agency; situational disability and issues which focus upon work issues which never should have been included in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A).  

These are generic designations of the types of issues which an OPM Claims Representative may argue as the primary basis of his or her denial of a Federal Disability Retirement application, and there may be multiple corollary issues which are described — but, ultimately, when all is said and done, there are limited reasons as to why an Initial Stage application for Federal Disability Retirement is denied.  

That fact, however — of the limited basis and reasons — does not mean that the issues are simple; rather, that in responding to a denial from OPM, no matter how lengthy the denial letter may appear (or how short, for that matter), the issues can be neatly “broken down” and placed into manageable categories in order to respond.  Responding to a denial properly (in addition to filing the Request for Reconsideration in a timely manner) is important; how to respond, is all the more important.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire