Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: The Unguided Doctor

In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, it is important to guide the doctor into properly preparing and formulating the medical narrative report.

This is not a matter of “telling what the doctor to say”.  The treating doctor is obviously aware of the types of medical conditions that the patient — the Federal worker who is filing for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits — is suffering from.  The doctor’s professional integrity, as to what his or her medical opinions are, should always be preserved and be paramount.  

Further, it is merely a factual issue as to whether the doctor will be supportive of such an endeavor, and such support can only come about by having a direct and frank discussion about the requirements of one’s positional duties and how those positional duties are impacted by one’s medical conditions.  

Rather, the issue of guiding the doctor is one of informing him or her of the particular elements which are necessary and unique in a Federal Disability Retirement application, which must be addressed in a narrative report.  For, otherwise, the unguided doctor will simply issue a narrative report with a different focus and a different end.

Guidance is merely knowing what the goal of a particular activity requires, and unless the treating doctor understands the technical requirements of what is needed (the end-goal), that doctor will merely attempt to meander by accident in a formulation which may include elements which are more harmful, than helpful, in preparing, formulating, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under either FERS or CSRS.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire