OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Dawn’s Transition

In the calm of morning darkness, when the stillness of winter whispers a hushed tone of quietude just before the first break of dawn, one’s perspective falls askew amidst the shadows and desolation of winter.  Is that a rock or a dead bird, frozen in the stillness of winter’s despair?  Was the movement behind the trees a reflection, or just the first faintness of dawn’s exposure?  Perspectives are funny glazes; a once familiar landscape can be frighteningly unfamiliar within the dark chasms of one’s own mind.

Then, almost imperceptibly, the light of dawn begins to pervade, and that which once appeared strange and foreboding, takes on the familiarity of known objects, recognizable forms, and identifiable shapes.  We live by light, and light is the friend of our fanciful imaginations gone awry by fear and loathing.

Medical conditions have a similar subtlety, much like the light of dawn:  they slowly creep upon one, until the debilitating impact is revealed when just a moment before, the fear of darkness was overwhelming.  But just as the morning glow of the rising sun will bring warmth and a promise of openness, so the hope underlying any conflict in life must be placed within a context of future castings.  Hope is for the future, as light is a diminishment of a present or past darkness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition,  present circumstances are often like the overwhelming and foreboding sense of morning darkness before the dawn of the rising sun; it portends yet of a future unknown, and a fate yet to be decided.  That is why it is important to “let go” of those things of which one has no control, and concurrently, to affirmatively take steps towards the familiarity of that which is known.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a “known” quantity.  Yes, it is a difficult administrative process and procedure to engage; yes, it is a bureaucratic morass of unquantifiable proportions; but it is a necessary step for those Federal or Postal employees who find themselves with a medical condition which begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in the positional slot of one’s Federal or Postal job.

As the allegory in Plato’s Republic tells the story of the enslaved shadows struggling in the darkness of the Cave, so the Federal or Postal employee who looks up at the opening beyond, to the light of dawn, must surely recognize that the fear and loathing felt in the shadows wavering in that moment before dawn’s glory, is but a temporary point in fate’s cradle, just before the brightness of one’s future is revealed in a time and place yet to be destined for the glory of summer.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Insufficiency Test

The validity of allegation that there is an insufficiency of X is partly determined by an objective standard, and partly (if not mostly) derived from a judgment as to the nexus between X and the standard to be applied.

In Federal Disability Retirement cases the basis of most Federal Disability Retirement denials is that there is an insufficiency of proof, whether as to issues of light duty or accommodation, medical opinion, medical documentation; questions about deficiency of service; and multiple other specified areas — but all will ultimately be determined to have a “lack” of something such that it fails to meet a “sufficiency” test.  But sufficiency can only be determined by comparing what exists (i.e., what has been previously submitted to the Office of Personnel Management) to what the legal standard of proof requires.

Further, since the overriding legal standard is based upon a “preponderance of the evidence”, which requires that something be ‘more likely than not’, the narrow gap between human involvement in the judgement of sufficiency, and a truly objective basis for such insufficiency, is susceptible to human error.  Because of this, appearance of quantity in addition to quality is often what is required.

As decisions by OPM are rendered by a wide range of people whose judgment, competence and approach in evaluating a case differ greatly, it is unfortunately necessary to take into consideration the foibles of human error.  Until a precise algorithm is invented which applies fairly and accurately in all cases across the board, we must continue to deal with human beings, the their errors of judgment.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Lawyer

 

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Connections

It is the logical and sequential connections between independent facts, which provide the foundational basis in “proving” a thing.  One can infer or imply; it is indeed possible to extrapolate; but to leave such cognitively-arduous exercise to someone at the Office of Personnel Management is merely to cast it to a chance occurrence.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important to expressly state the obvious — and not just the facts themselves, but the very connections which bind the independent conceptual constructs, and which lead to unmistakable and irrefutable conclusions.

Thus, while it might be obvious to some that if X medical conditions impact Y essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, it is nevertheless important to emphasize the “why” as well as the “how”.

From a treating doctor’s perspective, such a connection may be so obvious that it need not be emphasized — precisely because of the intimate knowledge which the treating doctor has accumulated over the years and years of reviewing diagnostic test results, through repeated clinical examinations, etc.  But from a case-worker’s perspective at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, who is reviewing one’s application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits for the first (and possible only) time, repetition of connections is vital to a successful outcome.

How does one metaphorically gain the attention of someone at OPM?  By repetition and making explicit that which may otherwise be implicit and hidden.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire