FERS Medical Retirement from OPM: Back to Basics

Aristotle always refers back to foundational principles — back to ‘first principles’, or to the basics of life.   And so we must always keep that in mind too, even in — or especially when — filing a Disability Retirement application under the FERS retirement system with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Yes, there are always a multiplicity of ancillary issues involved — of Agency efforts for accommodating the employee, of the character of a proposed separation of the Federal or Postal employee, and the subsequent invocation of the Bruner Presumption.  But in the end, it goes back to the first principles — the medical condition itself.  What are the symptoms; what is it about the condition itself which makes it inherently incompatible with the essential duties of the position; what is it about the incompatible nature of the condition that OPM fails to appreciate?

The health condition itself — that devastating failure of the body and/or the mind which profoundly alters one’s chosen career, character, and life.  How much more ‘basic’ can it get?

One’s career is often inseparable from one’s self-identity and consumes a greater proportion of time than most any other activity.  Yes, yes, we give lip service, to ‘family-time’ and ‘leisure time’, etc. but the reality is that we expend most of our own energies in pursuing our careers, and that is why when an injury, illness, or disability hits us, it has devastating consequences.  And so it must begin with the foundation of the first principle — of the basic medical condition, and from there — to build from it.

Of course those issues which OPM takes advantage of — the ancillary concepts of Agency accommodations, of applying relevant case law and preemptively addressing those pitfalls which OPM seems to take pleasure in forming the basis of a denial, but that all begins with the basic understanding of those first principles — the originating medical condition itself.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, those overlooked first principles must be the originating source in compiling an effective FERS Disability Retirement application.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement under FERS, and consider whether beginning from the “basics” may be in fact the best way to start.

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.

 

Permanent Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Post-Separation Evidence

OPM ignores the law.  Despite over a decade since the opinion expressed in Reilly v. OPM, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, 571 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2009), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management continues to dismiss the relevance of post-separation medical evidence in a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application.

OPM will systematically deny cases with the following type of statement: “You doctor stated X.  However, the medical report was dated after your separation from Federal Service.  Therefore, you did not establish that you were medically disabled from performing your job while a Federal employee.”  Huh?

Three things stand out, of course: First, most medical conditions are progressive and degenerative in nature and do not appear on the very day a doctor examines a patient.

Second, the clear logical error of OPM’s argument is so blatant: X exists. X exists after Time-Y. Therefore, because X exists after Time-Y, X did not exist prior to Time-Y.  Or: I saw a man named Tom. I saw Tom today and did not see him yesterday.  Therefore, Tom was not born before I saw him today.  Absurd.

And third: OPM ignores the law as stated in Reilly, where post-separation medical evidence is clearly relevant if a proper nexus is established to a pre-separation time-frame.

Don’t let OPM’s illogical interpretation of the law defeat you.  Contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and beat them back in order to obtain the benefits you are entitled to.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Sitting alone

Sitting alone can be dangerous.  Whether early in the morning or late at night, when one’s thoughts are the only neighbor within, and the soliloquy of voices have been shuttered into basement echoes where the drip-drip of a broken faucet reverberates amidst the endless thoughts of tumult and disaster.  The disconnect between reality and thought, betwixt action and mind, become exponentially exaggerated when sitting alone.

Rarely do tectonic shifts in the objective world result in major disasters where entire civilizations crumble and become destroyed; for, each and every day, subterranean movements occur imperceptibly without notice of bystanders who walk from cafe to office; but within the shifts which occur while sitting alone, the tumults of a mind fearful of one’s future become endless nightmares that cannot be contained.

The subtlety of fear unrecognized; the voice within that panders to irrationality; or of the dread that overwhelms — it can all come about through sitting alone.  The cacophony of voices around; the television blaring to drown out silence; friends and acquaintances invited in order to keep out the squeezing quietude of being alone: these are temporary ways of blunting the danger of sitting alone.

It is like having a medical condition and trying desperately to ignore it; at some point, we are all alone in the world, just as the womb that once protected within a catacomb of warmth and security became lost upon the expelling into the cold and heartless universe, and so we remain sitting alone with fear and loathing for a future yet undecided.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are sitting alone, unsure of what do to because a medical condition has begun to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is time to consult with an attorney and begin the process of initiating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and to stop avoiding the prospect of sitting alone by becoming lost in the day-to-day struggle of endless points of procrastination.

For, sitting alone is the pathway to realizing the disasters that loom within one’s thinking; it is a consultation with an experienced OPM Disability Retirement attorney that will open upon the doors for a future yet untold.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Believing in something

It is difficult, these days, to do so.  One can, by rote of habit, engage in the taciturn void of Gregorian chants, of hardened wood to kneel upon in prayerful silence where altar boys were muffled in horror in backrooms somewhere behind the hidden conscience of priests who, holy though they appeared, were but men of fleshly wants; or of giving when the televangelist prayed for miracles and allowed the camera angle to capture the piety of a winking heart.

Modernity defies believing in something.  We scoff at piety because we learned long ago that priests in dark robes were merely cloaked in outward appearances while engaging in acts of desecration behind closed doors, and gurus who rode around in expensive cars while preaching the gospel of meditative calm possessed devious thoughts untold behind craggy beards and beady eyes; and so we have lost the capacity for believing in something, anything, and let our children roam the streets of nihilism, sensual extortions of human bondage and the virtual reality of video consoles, only to be disappointed when they find emptiness in their lives reflective of an endless chasm of dreamless nights.

Once upon a time, Johnny believed in things; and then the marching band stopped when wars became endless, where speeches no longer carried the weight of conscience and greed seemed rampant in the daily lives of believers and beggars alike.  A priest once told this writer that he wished that the Church would sell all of its assets and go back to being the mendicant preachers we once were; but that was years ago, and not much has changed.

For most of us, we continue to cling to the thin reed of possibility; for the rest of us, we must contend with the reality of life’s trials: of work; family; health and friendships; and perhaps the belief in a tomorrow yet to be fulfilled with promised days of warm memories.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition has begun to prevent one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, believing in something is a foundation for the next steps to take: Of a Statute in Federal Disability Retirement Law that sets forth a criteria to be met, and then to set about proving that one has met them.

Often, believing in something is nothing more than acting upon a need and setting about fulfilling that need; and for Federal and Postal employees who need to file for a FERS Disability Retirement, consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is the first step towards believing in something that you have a right to believe in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The leaked information

Most “secrets” are well-known; it is the combining of a multiplicity of the unknown, which constitutes the importance of leaked information.  Thus, it may be disseminated as to the “what”, but until it can be connected to the “when” or the “who”, the irrelevancy of the data remains in its isolation of significance.  Or, perhaps what will occur is revealed, and by whom, and even the destined time and place; but if caution delays the planned event for another day, hypervigilance can only be maintained for a limited period of time before exhaustion of focus, concentration and attentiveness wanes by profound fatigue.

There is, then, that old hippie dictum:  What if a tree falls in a forest unoccupied; did it make a noise?  Similarly, and in parallel format:  What if information is leaked, but no one took notice; is it relevant?  Does signification of data require acknowledgment?  Why is it that, in certain crime cases, concurrence of telling is important, even if no action is filed?  Why do decades-old cases suddenly come alive merely because impromptu declarations are made, or do underlying motives undermine the validity of such reenactments of crimes committed but neither solved nor investigated?

One often assumes that information begotten through nefarious sources is somehow less reliable; but it is more likened to the man whose leg gets bitten off by a shark while swimming in the midday sun – he hardly becomes comforted by the statistical limitations of an event that has already occurred.  Yet, we constantly obsess over leaked information; data which may be sensitive; constructs that can be pieced together, like a jigsaw puzzle but in the realm of real life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, there is first the fear that one’s inner intent may be “leaked”; that discussion over the telephone may be overheard by those whose intent and motivation may not be as pristine as the proverbial snowfall the night before; and that, once filed, personal medical information may be disseminated without the privacy protection accorded by law.

In the end, the best that can be done remains twofold:  (1) try to restrict access to a Federal Disability Retirement application by providing fair warning as to the legal consequences if violated, and (2) to realize that the ultimate goal should always be kept in sight – that of getting an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and once that is done, all of the leaked information around the world will become irrelevant, as the focus always was, and should be, to reach that level of rest and restorative peace in order to attend to the real issue at hand:  One’s own medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Urban decay and the relevance of rye

There is a reason why phoniness cannot survive or endure for long on a farm, as opposed to the urban decay of mass population centers; the animals won’t stand for it, and there is no one to be pretentious for, when hard work, sweat and toil replaces the incessant striving for acceptance, consumption and coercive condescensions.  It is not an accident that Caulfield spends his time in the decay of urban life, amongst people who display a duality of faces and concealed motives, while all the time dreaming of an imaginary existence in a field of rye, catching all of the children who may run astray in the innocence of their blinded youth.

It is because the pastoral settings of American lore have always had a fascination of timeless yearning; as only a few generations ago saw the destruction of most of human existence, before the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the desertion from rural countryside and mass migration from bank foreclosures and independence wrought and molded from self-sufficient living, so the age of modernity witnesses what the aggregation and amalgam of mass population intersection does to the soul of the individual.

Like the composite alloy which fails to fuse, the dental fillings crumble with time and decay by sheer inability to blend; the only means of survival is to pretend that all is well, that the ivory towers built, the emperor’s clothes which fail to fit, and the harmful toxicity which destroys — they all work, except behind closed doors in cubbyholes of private thoughts when the night no longer conceals and the truth of ugliness pushes to the forefront.

On a farm, or in the fields of rye where the crops must thrive and children may run in the innocence of their unpretentious exuberance, only the silent stares of barnyard animals look for judgment of purpose, and as pretending never gets the work done, so the need to put on a face of concealment does nothing but waste time and needless effort.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who witnesses the daily bifurcation between truth and reality, sincerity and concealed hostility, it is the openness of a medical condition which often breaks down the barriers of pretentiousness.  Suddenly, you become the target of meanness unspoken, of harassment barely veiled, and small-mindedness partially concealed.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, looked upon this way, is really no big deal when contrasted to what has occurred just before the act of filing; for, the sores which erupted and the boils that ruptured, were already seething beneath a mere veneer of civility, and the actual submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application is to bring out the obvious.

Whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the act of filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application —  first through one’s Human Resource Office of one’s own agency if the Federal or Postal employee is not separated from Federal Service or the U.S. Postal Service, or even if separated, for not more than 31 days; otherwise, if separated for 31 days or more, but less than 1 year, then directly to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is to merely unveil the phoniness of niceties and civility engendered, but now to openly see whether the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service will remain true to its promise of non-discriminatory treatment of a Federal or Postal employee with an identified medical disability.

And like the job of the catcher in the rye who stands guard for those wayward children innocently running through the fields, oblivious of the lurking dangers just beyond in the urban decay of unconstrained emptiness, it is the lawyer who admonishes with the laws to enforce, which often prevents the weakness of the nets that fail to catch that heavy tumble over the cliff of a bureaucratic abyss.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: The Disadvantage of the I-Thou Perspective

People tend to expect the best results; and when a Federal or Postal employee files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the applicant who is unrepresented and prepares, formulates and files the Federal Disability Retirement packet on his or her own believes that an approval is forthcoming at the First Stage of the Process.  Yet, often unaware and unbeknownst to the Federal or Postal applicant, the lack of separation between the I-Thou construct fails to provide a proper perspective of objectivity.

Allow me to expand and explain:  As the Federal or Postal employee who experiences the medical condition (the “I”) is the same person who prepares, formulates and files the Medical Retirement application (the “thou” from the perspective of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management), any sense of objectivity is often lost because the I and the Thou are one and the same person, and the Federal or Postal employee who experiences the medical condition is simultaneously the same one who is seeking an approval of the OPM Disability Retirement application.

Of course, that same scenario is repeated even if the application is filed through a Federal Disability lawyer (in the sense that the Federal or Postal employee still seeks to obtain an approval from OPM) with one major exception:  there is another “thou” perspective included and involved — that of the Federal lawyer representing the Federal or Postal employee who is seeking to have a Federal Disability Retirement application approved.

Objectivity is a crucial component of a Federal Disability Retirement application; that is why so many “silly” mistakes are injuriously embraced without self-knowledge or with disengaged awareness.  It is like the cook who loved the taste of arsenic, and thought that everyone else should as well; and so he sprinkled the deadly poison onto his own food and enjoyed the taste of his own creation, only to slowly die from the feed of his own foolishness.

There are many “kinds” in the arena of foolish endeavors:  There is the “quantitative approach” (“I sent them thousands of pages of treatment records”) which fails to ask the question, Who will read it all?  There is the “trusting soul”:  “I just signed a release and had them send it all directly to my Human Resource Office”.  Then, there is the person of naive disbelief:  “How could they not approve it with the medical conditions I suffer from?”

The problem with all of these is the lack of objective perspective; the I-Thou connection is now given the distance, separateness and objectivity necessary to determine the viability and effectiveness of each and every piece of the puzzle needed to put together a proper Federal Disability Retirement application.  Are there ever any guarantees in life?  No.  Can a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement laws make a difference?  Yes.

Fortunately, unlike the metaphor arising from the cook and the salsa of arsenic, there are multiple stages within the administrative process of pursuing Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, and a denial at the First Stage of the bureaucratic pathway is not irreversible, and does not result in the inertia of life rendered by ingestion of substances otherwise tasty but harmful.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Employees from the Postal Service and Other Federal Agencies: Things That Go Bump in the Night

The nightmare of filing for FERS Disability Retirement in times of financial, emotional, and medical needs

Whether or not childhood fear and traumas have a long-term impact in determinable ways upon reactive capacities later in life; to what extent regularity of behaviors, consistency of habitual living, and early imprinting mechanisms influence subconscious firings of synapses, remains within the mysterious realm of esoteric knowledge investigated and analyzed by the coalescence of science, philosophy and psychology; but it is the lay person who must, during the process of unfolding discovery and wisdom, live the consequences of actions impacted by others.

Sometimes, however, it is not what others do, but rather, circumstances which manifest of untold trauma and misery, for which no explanation but a shrug of one’s shoulders can presume.  Medical conditions fall into that category.  How one reacts to it; the extent of the impact upon one’s life, livelihood and future; and the preparations one must undertake in order to secure the betterment for one’s life when once you get beyond the condition itself, if ever; these are all concerns and pathways of responsibilities which fall upon a person who suddenly finds him or herself with a medical condition of significant magnitude.

Whether physical in nature — where orthopedic pain, limitation of flexion and movement; chronic pain, profound fatigue, or neurological issues resulting from disc desiccation, internal derangement of joints, etc.; or of psychiatric issues encompassing the many complex diagnoses, including Bipolar Disorder, pain and anxiety issues, Major Depression, depressive disorders; it matters not in the end, for either and both impact those decisions which one must make in determining the pathway of one’s future.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition impacts one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration must always be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For Federal Disability Retirement, preconditions and pre-existing conditions matter not; it is not like an OWCP claim where the focus of query may attempt to undermine a claim based upon the origin of the condition; and so the “how” and the “why” are not relevant issues, as in “how did it happen” or “why did it occur”?  The relevant inquiry does not encompass the “time before”; it does not delve into the deep reaches of one’s damaged psyche, or of preexistent traumas in the far recesses of damaged lives.

Whether or not things go bump in the night when once we become adults matters less, than the experiential trauma of having to deal with present issues that impact one immediately.  Taking care of life’s interruptions is a necessary component of living, and for Federal and Postal workers whose future avenue of livelihood is impacted by a medical condition, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement is of paramount importance.

Bumps always tend to occur in the night; it is what the “thing” is that we must identify and resolve, and what bodes for the uncertain future into which we must venture.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire