FERS Disability: Formulating the Reconsideration Rebuttal

It is a frustrating process when the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issues a denial and the Federal employee or Postal Service worker must respond effectively within a limited prescribed time.  OPM has all the time in the world to prepare the denial letter, and will often take as long as they want in preparing a lengthy denial letter.

Once received, the denied Federal applicant has 30 days from the date of the denial to “Request Reconsideration” and will be granted 30 additional days beyond the time requested in order to submit any legal response and additional documentary evidence in support of your case.  Then, within that prescribed time period, a response must be prepared and submitted.

It is this formulation of substantive responsiveness that will determine the future course of the next steps — whether a subsequent denial will require a further appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, or with approval of the application, the end of the bureaucratic process has occurred and the next frustrating phase of waiting for the payment department to begin issuing annuity payments will ensue.

As with all things with unlimited time on one’s hands, OPM will extract every word and phrase from doctor’s notes and office visits, take them out of context and interpret everything in favor of denial.

It is often an overwhelming process of a “shotgun approach” where OPM attempts to make it appear as though (A) You were ridiculous in even trying to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits and/or (B) what you had submitted previously was entirely insufficient and need not even be considered any further.

The net effect of the denial letter is to leave you with the impression that you should forget about the whole thing and just give up.  Don’t be fooled by this tactic, because that is all that it is — a ploy to just convince you to give up.

Instead, break down OPM’s arguments into manageable categories, of which the two primary ones are: (1) lack of showing of a deficiency in performance, conduct, or attendance and/or (2) insufficient medical documentation.  Then, attempt to gather any further documentation to reinforce those weak links and argue how the caselaw or statute is met with the additional supportive documents.

One other reminder: So long as you have met the timeframe of requesting reconsideration  within that 30-day period, you have a chance at winning your case —so, make sure you file the request in a timely fashion.  And, furthermore, you may want to contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to help you formulate an effective response.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill,

Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Traps and landmines

They are not just set on the roadsides of war zones or in public squares where the greatest damage can be projected; for, by analogy, they are in existence as metaphors of human deviancy and evil intents. Traps are deliberately set with motives and intentions to capture; landmines and other devices are put in place to maim, injure or kill.

Then, of course, there are analogies used and metaphors employed — of legal traps and linguistic landmines; of contracts that “hide” language in miniature fonts that are designed by clever lawyers to mislead and draw into a cobweb of entanglements meant to enclose, corner and — like traps and landmines — either to capture or to destroy.  Linguistic landmines and traps are the ones we encounter more often than the ones in war zones.

In other countries, in far away places where we see reporters “embedded” and whispering in hushed tones of urgency to give us a sense of danger and exotic misadventures, we get a sense of what real traps and landmines are all about.  But in this country, within our universe of relative calm and peace but for the periodic tumults of tragedies in the next city, the farther town or that “big city” out there — in such relative calm, it is usually just a casual trap of language or a landmine of a metaphorical sort.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the applicant for Federal Disability Retirement must be cautious and wary of the legal and linguistic landmines and traps in the very preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement Application.

Those innocent-looking forms, such as SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability — while they do not pose the same danger as a mousetrap to a mouse or a landmine to a wandering child on foreign soil — nevertheless, they can become problematic unless you are aware of the dangers posed, much like those traps and landmines we hopefully will never encounter in war zones and conflicts afar, in a metaphorical sense.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Claims: What we value

We give lip-service about the things we claim to value.  One’s intentions often satisfy the guilt we secretly harbor, whether suppressed consciences touch upon the better half of our souls, or not.  We “say” we wish to spend more time with family members, our kids, our spouses and other kindred spirits, but then when the opportunity opens up for us to do so, we wallow in the self-pity of the internal universe we create.

Have circumstances forced upon us those intentions we have often voiced but never fulfilled?  If a medical condition forces one to remain at home, why are we not happy that we can spend more time with those whom we have previously cast aside with the words spoken but never followed through upon?

If what we value is based solely upon the words spoken, we would indeed be seen as a compendium of value-filled coupons collected over many years of savings; but as time in a bottle is merely an empty space of air filling a bubble of eternity, so words thrown about carelessly to listening ears may be too young to realize and otherwise cling to voices that reassure but never fulfill, like the wolf in sheep’s clothing that devours all who are so gullible as to disregard the elongated nose that defies belief.

In the end, what we value is proven by the actions we initiate, fulfill, embrace and confirm; and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal position, it is the deterioration of one’s health that becomes the very test of that which we value.

Is one’s health important?  Does one’s career override all else?  What is the meaning of “sacrifice”, and how far must one go in proving one’s loyalty and commitment?

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is not a judgment upon what we value; it is, instead, a reflection of how we value workers who have shown a commitment in the Federal sector and the Postal Service, by recognizing that once the eligibility criteria of 18 months of Federal Service has been completed, the family of Federal and Postal workers have a vested interest in protecting the rights of a worker who has suffered from a medical condition and deserves greater consideration than to cast them aside with nothing but the shirt on their backs, or the empty words often bandied about without meaning or value.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Identifying the time for change

At what point does a person finally realize that it is time for a change?  That things cannot go on “as is” much longer, and certain modifications, “accommodations” (there’s that fearful word, again) and alterations must occur, or else you feel that your head will explode or something dire will suddenly befall.  Inside, daily, your thoughts turn to the knowledge that “this cannot go on forever”, and that something must occur.  But what?

Then, the voice of hope keeps whispering that, well, perhaps circumstances will change, alterations to the objective universe may come about in the morning thereafter, and the world will somehow shift and things will get better.

We have been fed upon from infancy until the cold winds of adulthood that folklore and fairytales occur, but the reality is that unless we initiate the pathways of change, they rarely occur except in fables of miracles and mythologies told in dusty old books.

First, it should be clear that the need for change has already been identified when one recognizes that it is time for change.  That identification, however, is often not enough.  For, it is the further sub-identification in recognizing what it is that needs change, and more importantly, why?

If the reasons underlying the need are within the purview of one’s control and destiny of choices being made, then the second step in the process can be initiated by the need identified.  That is the critical juncture in the decision-making process: Of identification, the reason, the underlying need, and then the steps taken to initiate the change in order to satisfy the need identified.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the need for change often comes about incrementally, insidiously and without great fanfare.

The “need for change” can often come at a critical juncture where frustration of a sense of impending doom collide, and necessity arises because no other alternative pathways appear to exist.  Moreover, it is the identification of the time for change that is often overlooked — that point in life where one is scrambling about desperately not quite knowing the “why” of the need, but only that it must come about.

Speaking to an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement law may be the first step in sorting it all out.  For the Federal or Postal employee who must by necessity consider filing a Federal Disability Retirement application , the need for change is likely now; identifying the time for change may only require the time it takes to have an initial consultation with a lawyer who has guided many Federal and Postal employees through this process before.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Other people’s misery

Why is it that the misery of others tends to soothe our own?  Yes, yes – we grant the common and appropriate responses of heartfelt empathy and facial frowns and perhaps even some tears; but in the end, is it because of the resulting comparative analysis – of a cold, rational and logical methodology of responsive behavior – that we appease the gods of fate in some primitive form of sacrificing others, knowing that so long as the traveling karma has not yet noticed our own plight of devious accord, we are safe for another day?

Or is there some false paradigm upon which most of us operate – that economic prosperity is based upon a limited “pie”, and we must take a set portion before it disappears, or protect the leftovers we have salvaged against the ravenous predators who seek to deprive; or that chance and statistical ascription of proportional divides mandate that there is only a predetermined reach of human misery on a macro-level, and so long as that preset number is satisfied, such tragedy of suffering will leave us untouched?

We certainly have a history of such mythological adherence; whether of man’s historical conduct by religious fervor and slaughter in the name of heavens unreached (which has still not quenched its thirsting pinnacle of folly, as current epics attest to), or in the silent quips and prayers uttered to protect ourselves from nature’s fury; we believe, somehow, that but for the grace granted by an unfathomable other, we would experience the plight of those whom we would rather avoid like the plague.  Or is it much more basic – somewhat like the epidemic which takes the life of another, and the thought is, so long as the infectious predator busily devours and destroys the next guy, you are immune to its distracted attention?

We certainly find relief, and even enjoy the consternation of discussion, in other people’s misery; to stand around and about gossiping of trials and heartaches inflicted (with the distinction appropriated that, because the point of such exchanges are meant to be “helpful”, so the difference between “malicious gossip” and what we engage in must by definition allow for the momentary lapse from decorum) upon “poor Joe” or “Aunt Emma”, all the while making sure that the concealing mask bordering upon frowns and distraught distractions would not betray the sense of relief felt that it is the “other” guy whose misery remains.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the thing that must be known and recognized at the outset is that the human need to embrace, discuss and “do something about” other people’s misery, is that the “other” person is you.  Thus, whether in a small department or a larger agency where anonymity prevails, or in a small post office or larger postal facility, the gossip which runs throughout will be like an untamed fire where no amount of extinguishers will control the spreading of it.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the only way to control the discussion of that which once was the subject of another, when the “other” of other people’s misery becomes the object directed at you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Separation from Federal Employment due to Disabling Conditions: The Cost of Human Detritus

Whether used metaphorically or in stark linguistic pragmatism but described with a shroud of nicety cloaked by innuendo and oblique allusion, the aggregate of detritus produced and scattered is daunting when calculated by daily volume, multiplied by the current population, and exponentially projected in terms of a mere decade or two.  But waste or debris can take on many forms, including a reference to loss of potential, shattered emotional and psychological constructs destroyed by garbage left in the wounds of a child harmed.

Human detritus is the compilation of all of the garbage gathered by society, whether of abandoned towns and provinces left hollow and uninhabitable because of the ravages of war, or the production of things used and discarded for daily convenience; and in metaphorical terms, of the skeletons of men and women shed of the substance of form and character because of the treatment weathered on the shores of indecency.

Gather up the cumulative aggregate of human detritus having occupied this planet, both in terms of physical objects and the wounding shards of deliberating projectiles intent upon destruction and devastation, and we have a daunting sense of who we are, what we stand for, and where we are headed.  Waste and debris; in the end, will those two words describe the sum total of what we have contributed to the world around us?  What is the algorithm, or methodological approach, in determining that conclusion of accomplishments at the end of our lives?  Is it determined in terms of how many neighbors and friends we destroyed, or of whom we bamboozled?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who seek to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits out of necessity of circumstances, it often appears that the answer to the previous question is found in the extent and unlimited character of cruelty found in the essence of humankind.  Harassment, workplace stress and intolerance of less productivity discovered in the Federal or Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, are merely further indicia of the eternal bewilderment we discover concerning human invective.

Accommodation of one’s medical condition is rarely found; an exponential rise in human passivity and loss of empathetic response has become the norm; and because there is no other exit, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the alternative of choice, and understandably so.

For, in the end, the cost of human detritus resides not in the workplace which we left, or the placards promised but discarded in the hidden closets of dusty psyches; rather, the cost is counted by the scars hidden when actions known to benefit remain mere thoughts of procrastinated dreams, like the warm breath of gods and angel’s wings fluttering in the timeless eternity of last year’s wishes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Federal Disability Retirement: Beyond mere contrivances

We learn at an early age to create a world of make-believe; of knights and princesses extracted not from the dungeons of the feudal world steeped in hunger, mass epidemic deaths and living conditions unfit even for the rats which lived and traveled freely in the underbelly of wealthy kings and courtesans, but from the literary imaginations of later dreamers.  Or of happiness couched in syllables of uncertain saliency, where we talk ourselves into believing that fairness is inherent in games of chance, that speeches make for belief, and what people do behind closed doors are for the privacy of minds and mindless chatter, not for public consumption before the vote is cast.

To be “real” is to open one’s self to the gates of hell; and in a society which relishes artificiality and antiseptic appearances where we are willing to poison ourselves in order to attain the pristine color of chemical green in the August wilt of lawns thirsting for a drop of rain, how can we expect empathy when we have all throughout our lives stamped out the reality of suffering which would foster such emotions?  Thus do we have to live, in the very bed which we have made.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is all the more difficult to face the reality and to go beyond the mere contrivances of life.

Medical conditions have a way of slapping one squarely in the face of reality; it cannot be concealed, nor hidden behind the smiling face of genteel “hellos” and “how are you” artifices; the eyes tell all, and the hurting condemnation wrought by limps, squints and trembling hands, cannot but tell the story of impending doom.

How does the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service react in such situations?  Did the pristine lawn and ego of a prior promotion help to foster the feelings of care, concern and community of thought?

From birth to death, the life of contrivances has taught us well, and the reaping of that harvest of cold-heartedness reveals the underbelly of who we are.  And so, what is to be done?  For the Federal and Postal worker,  to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, in order to attain a level of security so one can move beyond the mere contrivances, and then to determine the next steps to regain a level of humanity perhaps lost and never to be returned, but at the very least, to try, and again, to try.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire