Federal Disability Retirement: The Dependence of Meaning

Wittgenstein believe that it was not possible to have a private language held by an individual alone; for, as language by definition is a means to communicate, any language which is kept in private from everyone else would be a meaningless tool.

Private, insular worlds are dependent upon their functioning upon the receipt by third parties to impart meaning and interaction; otherwise, left within the void and chasm of pure privacy, they remain nothing more than the slow drip of a distant echo of spring water deep within the hollows of an undiscovered cave.  For those of the rest of us who live and interact within a world of words, writings, and regulatory compendium of laws and statutes, the ability to convey meaning in a meaningful way is paramount for the successful progression of our every day lives.

For the Civilian Federal or Postal Worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal duties, conveying what one means becomes a critical exercise:  putting together an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, in a manner which persuades and entitles, is the penultimate goal which must be accomplished.

How one gets from point A to point B; what material and evidence to compile and include; what legal arguments to bring up and point out; these are all elements which must be considered. Concurrently, the privacy of one’s medical conditions must be protected to the fullest; but that is where the compromise must be attained, between the private and insular world of necessity, and the public world of reality which must be encountered and engaged.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Being Effective is the Point

In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, it is important to bifurcate the various and multitudinous issues, assign (implicitly) the import, relevance and correlative significance of each issue as it relates and satisfies the criteria for eligibility; then, to proceed to systematically delineate each such issue, yet present them in a narrative fashion such that they constitute a sufficiently human narrative to convey the impact of the medical condition.

As the Office of Personnel Management often attempts to rebut and argue, the “mere existence of a medical condition does not warrant approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application.”  That being said, a clinical approach to listing a set of diagnosed medical conditions obviously is insufficient to persuade and convince the Office of Personnel Management of one’s eligibility and entitlement to Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  For, isn’t that ultimately the point — to get it approved?

It becomes an act of futility to stand on a hilltop and repetitively declare, “I have a medical condition,” without being effective in presenting such a condition and obtaining an approval.  Of course, this is an administrative process; as such, it will often take more than the First Stage of the process before all of the factors coalesce with a resultant approval — the right balance between persuasion, facts, narrative form, medical documentation, legal argumentation, clinical notes, statement of disability, etc. Being “effective” means attaining that right balance between the medical, the legal, and the personal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire