Identifying the Right Bridge to Reach Your Destination: Federal Employee Disability Retirement

When considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, the natural inclination is to ask the seemingly primary question of: Does medical condition-X qualify as a disability? But such a question is in actuality secondary; it is the reverse-order and counterintuitive process which is often confusing for the Federal and Postal Worker who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The primary question, making the previously-stated questions secondary, is to ask: Does medical condition-X prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job?  By inverting the primary-secondary sequence, one can then attain a better level of understanding as to the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Further, such a switch in sequence of questions-to-answers allows for an important paradigm shift.  For, in the very asking of the proper question, one can reach a level of understanding to such a stage of comprehension that the question almost answers itself.

Medical conditions in and of themselves do not necessarily qualify the Federal or Postal Worker who is otherwise age or service-eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; it is the nexus which must be established between one’s position and the medical conditions one suffers from.  It is the crossing of that bridge which will reveal the extent of success or failure in attempting to go down this path; but first, the Federal or Postal Worker must correctly identify which bridge to cross, before even starting the long and arduous trek of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: The Proverbial Cup, Half Full or Half Empty

It is the classic metaphor by which we judge a person’s outlook and perspective on life; and whether influenced or determined by nature or nurture (and whether we repackage the issue by surrounding ourselves with linguistic complexities of scientific language encapsulating DNA, genetic predisposition, or social welfare conversations), the judgments we place upon people are more likely based upon mundane and commonplace criteria:  Does he uplift or depress?  Does she smile or frown?  Do you see the world around as a cup half empty, or half full?

But such stark bifurcations which colonize individuals into one classification or another, are rarely statements of ultimate truth or reality.  More likely, life is often a series of missteps and opportunities unclaimed.  Even waiting too long in making a decision can then result in an option lost, an alternative missed.  The complexity of life’s misgivings often confound us.

For Federal and Postal employees who are beset with a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing the essential elements of the official positional duties one occupies, the choices are not always clear precisely because the prognosis of future abilities and capacities cannot always be predicted with accuracy.  But at some point in one’s career, the choice between the half-filled cup and the half-empty one becomes more than an encounter with a proverb.

The medical condition itself may mean that one’s cup is half empty; but what one does in response, will determine whether the future bodes for a half-filled cup.

For the Federal and Postal worker, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is a step which can become a positive direction forward, or a misstep because of hesitation, procrastination, or even a predisposed genetic determination of an inability to engage in decision-making.

But nothing is ever forever; today’s half-filled cup can be refilled tomorrow, and Federal Disability Retirement can help to ensure one’s financial and economic security for the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal Workers: “Why?”

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The ability to question is perhaps the highest form of consciousness.  Without it, the next level of any narrative form would cease, and no prompting of a search for an answer will develop.

That is why effective trial work — from persuasive direct examinations to devastating cross-examinations, guided by pointedly-prepared questioning — requires thoughtfulness and contemplated direction.  Some questions, however, become avenues for paralysis.  They may, for a time, help to ease the troubles of one’s soul, but they are ultimately unanswerable ones which cannot be comprehended in the limited universe of one’s mind.

Thus, when a Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition asks the question,”Why?” — it is legitimate, but one which may not have an adequate answer.  One must instead progress to a more pragmatic question: What to do about it. Where to go from here.  The “why” may need to be left aside, for another time, during a more contemplative period of recuperation.

For Federal and Postal workers, time itself can be a critical factor, and in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, because the bureaucratic process itself is a long and complicated one, it may be of benefit to set aside some questions, and instead focus upon the pragmatic questions which set one upon a path of purposive direction.

The height of man’s consciousness may be the result of evolutionary factors, but the most fundamental of questions should begin with that primitive foundation of all: self-preservation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Appearance versus Substance

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under either FERS or CSRS, from the Office of Personnel Management, one often overlooks the basic, foundational questions needed to have answered in the preliminary stages of a Federal Disability Retirement case.

The fact that one has a medical condition which impacts one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job is a “given” — i.e., a fact that then prompts or initiates the entire procedure of even contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

To proceed from that “given”, however, requires further insight and questioning — more of a practical nature, as in:  What are the essential elements of my job?  Do I have doctors who view my medical condition in the same way as I do?  More importantly, will my doctors support me in my quest to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS?  How will I explain to them the very processes and procedures, of the legal and medical requirements which must be met in preparing a medical report, such that the medical narrative report will meet those legal requirements?  Do I have the resources ready in order to sustain a protracted administrative battle with the Office of Personnel Management?  Will my agency allow me to continue to work while I engage in this application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits?

These are all serious and substantive questions — ones which go beyond the mere appearance of thinking that preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the Office of Personnel Management, is merely a matter of “filling out forms“.

It never is, and just as “substance” differs from “appearance” (which is the entire philosophical basis of the Socratic and dialectical tradition of Western Philosophy), so the questions one asks at the outset of the process is important in determining the substantive nature of one’s quest.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire