CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Inside/Outside

Visiting another institution, community, neighborhood or business often evokes an initial response of envy or dismay; first impressions abound, and floods the channels of opinions based upon a comparison of one’s own life.

It is an interesting phenomena to view the perspective of an “outsider”, and it is always important to recognize that the private information known only by an “insider” is simply inaccessible to those who are not residents of a given community, or who have not been a member for a sufficiently long-enough period of time.  It is not so much that such information is a secret; rather, it is often the case that certain types of knowledge can only be gained through being a part of the whole.

On a microcosmic scale, then, the turmoil which an individual experiences because of a medical condition is a life which is rarely understood in full, and less so by certain types of predisposed personalities.   Sympathetic individuals have become a rarity; as we become more and more disconnected through virtual reality and the impersonal conduits of the internet, electronic mailing, etc., human capacity for empathy diminishes.

For the Federal and Postal Worker who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, the problem is further exacerbated because of the nature of a large bureaucracy.  Bureaucracies are by definition impersonal; starting off as another insider (within the Federal Sector), but in essence always remaining an outsider (because of the impersonal nature of the environment itself) often portends a lack of empathetic response by supervisors, co-workers and the organization as a whole.

Having the proper perspective throughout — of effectively and persuasively proving one’s Federal Disability Retirement case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is the best and only course of success.  How to go about it often depends upon balancing the proper insider/outsider perspective, as is the case for all of us.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Case Development

Federal Disability Retirement is one of those areas of law where countervailing forces are always at play, and the tug-of-war against time, resistance of individuals to respond, all within a context of a hectic-pace of life, create for a havoc of systems and regularity.

Because the underlying basis of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits often involves a chronic, progressively deteriorating medical condition, it is often seen from the perspective of the Federal or Postal employee to be an emergency; from the viewpoint of the medical doctor whose support for the case is critical, because the opinion of the doctor is essential to formulating the foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, it is often seen as another administrative burden; from the Agency’s vantage point, the alleged patience over the years which it has shown in “dealing” with loss of time, less-than-stellar performance, etc., often results in a reactionary adversity of being entirely unsympathetic to the plight of the Federal or Postal employee; and, together, all of the strands of these multiple countervailing forces places an undue pressure upon the entire process.  Yet, once it gets to the Office of Personnel Management, the file sits…and sits.

The long-term perspective on every Federal Disability Retirement application must always be to accept the fact that case development is the most important point to ponder.  Quickly filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether under FERS or CSRS, may in the end prove to be pound-foolish, especially in a retrospective, Monday-night quarterbacking sense, if OPM denies the case anyway.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Creating a Meaningful Bridge

In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, it is obviously important to construct an effective bridge, or nexus, between one’s identified medical conditions and the type of positional duties which one performs at the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  

In doing so, one should keep in mind certain essential points, each from the perspective of the Office of Personnel Management (which is the agency which will determine whether the Federal or Postal employee/applicant’s Federal Disability Retirement application will be approved or denied).  

For instance, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will only consider those medical conditions which are identified in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A).  Once a CSA Number (an administrative identifier which is assigned by OPM — an eight-digit number beginning with “4” for CSRS employees and ending with a “0”; and for FERS employees, beginning with an “8” and ending with a “0”) is assigned to an application, the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to add any further medical conditions without withdrawing the application completely, and re-submitting it anew.

Further, while the Office of Personnel Management will consider specific duties and descriptions of duties which are delineated and expanded upon in the narrative portion of SF 3112A, it is the “official” position description which will ultimately be controlling. Thus, a logical variance from the official position description as to what a Federal or Postal employee does, will not make any difference.  However, if what the Federal or Postal employee states that he or she is doing, is completely at odds with what the positional description states that he or she should be doing, then the controlling default will be the official position description.  

It is wise to keep these two perspectives in mind, in creating an effective bridge for a Federal Disability Retirement application.  For, ultimately, it is the perspective from the “other side” which matters, and as such, OPM’s perspective of how a Federal Disability Retirement application is reviewed and considered, is an important aspect in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Informational Perspectives

As a general maxim, it is true that not all information is equal; that the qualitative reliance of a given source of information, based upon consistency, accuracy, credibility, etc., should be viewed over the course of sufficient time; and that quantity and volume of information are often an inaccurate guide to determining the usefulness of such information.  

George Orwell’s novel, 1984 is considered a “classic” not only because of the excellence in writing style, but because the content and depiction of future events (now past in terms of events having occurred, predicted to occur, or passed occurrence or relevance because the historicity of such events has surpassed expectations of occurrence) have become a common banality of reality.  One point which Orwell was profoundly correct about, but in an inverse way, encapsulates information:  Orwell predicted that by reducing words and language, there would be the natural consequence of a reduction in conceptual possibilities, minimizing ideas, and more importantly, dangerous or revolutionary ideas.  Instead, the opposite has occurred:  by exponentially expanding information, and disseminating voluminous irrelevancies, there has been a parallel reduction of knowledge.  

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, there is much information “out there”.  Such volume of information, however, does not necessarily result in concurrence of knowledge.  

Information often contains a catch:  a perspective and a motive.  Is the information merely provided in order to persuade you to pay for services?  How was the information obtained — is it merely a regurgitation from information provided by someone else?  Has it been “cleverly borrowed” from someone else’s website?  There is nothing wrong with providing information with a secondary purpose of providing a service which is related to the information; how that information is provided, however, and whether such information is accurate, reliable and consistent, may make all the difference in the world.  

In pursuing eligibility for Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS from the Office of Personnel Management, be careful in accessing information on the issues; not all information is equal; and it is ultimately knowledge, not information, which one is attempting to obtain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire