Federal & Postal Employee Medical Retirement: The Intersection of Interests

Throughout one’s life, most Americans have minimal contact with governmental bureaucracies and agencies, except to comply with Selective Service requirements, join the military, file tax returns, claim Social Security benefits in older age, etc.  Such encounters are often considered bothersome, and many grumble and complain about the intrusive nature of such dealings. What is often not perceived, of course, is the vast amount of indirect statutory and administrative requirements placed upon private entities, which then shift burdens upon the private citizen, unbeknownst to the person entering the store, bank, etc.

For the Federal and Postal Worker, however, the daily bureaucratic encounters are part of one’s life. The Federal and Postal employee is part of that administrative process which impacts the private sector of the economy; they are, in essence, the “insiders” who make the mechanisms of the Federal government tick.  As such, the Federal and Postal Worker often has little idea how the “private” individual views such inner workings, until he or she becomes just like the “outsider” and encounters a Federal bureaucracy in the same shoes as the private individual.

When the Federal or Postal employee finds it necessary to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, such a clash and intersection of interests suddenly takes on a new perspective.  In one fell swoop, the Federal and Postal employee filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits becomes both an “insider” as well as an “outsider” — the former, because he or she is still part of the Federal agency or Postal Service; the latter, because such dealings must ultimately be with an independent agency identified as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Such intersection of interests often becomes befuddling; for, no longer is the encounter embracing the administrative and bureaucratic work to which one is accustomed; rather, it is to stand in line like other private citizens to file a claim for benefits.

Such a state of being, for the Federal and Postal Worker, can be likened to the deceased individual caught in Purgatory; and, indeed, perhaps some sins unknown and not atoned for, have been placed upon such Federal and Postal employees to have to encounter OPM in such a state. Whatever the reasons, such an encounter can be just as much of an eye-opener to the Federal and Postal employee, as a private citizen who encounters the complex bureaucracy of the Federal government for the first time in his or her life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Erasers

Erasers have been replaced by the ‘delete’ button; that concept alone is a peculiarity:  of the mechanism used to expunge is itself made obsolete and disappears.  It is a tribute to the human imagination that we can project scenarios in which individuals, including ourselves, are no longer part of the equation.

The anomaly, of course, rests in the reality that when we so imagine a scene which occurred, but of which we ‘delete’ certain events or individuals, the one who imagines such changes is omnisciently present by virtue of being the one who thinks and creates such thoughts.  That is sometimes part of the problem in considering a change in one’s life; we are often incapable of imagining the change because we cannot fathom deleting our presence, or altering the circumstances, from that which we have known and traveled for so long.

Habitual dependence allows for a comfort zone which is difficult to traverse and alter.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts one or more of the essential elements of one’s work duties, the problem is often not the capacity to imagine change — for the medical condition itself has forced upon the Federal and Postal employee the changes by virtue of physical or cognitive alterations — but rather, the problem often involves imagining the necessity of making changes based upon the changes already wrought.

Such second-tier changes require planning and implementation beyond that which the medical condition forces; and consideration of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a necessary step in that process of accepting further changes.

It is like the eraser protesting to the computer that complete obsolescence cannot occur, despite the inevitable march of technology and time.  Oh, and by the way, they still do sell erasers.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: When the Plan Goes Awry

When the old Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) would release its “5 Year Plan”, it presented a systematic economic model of an ordered and organized state — a feature of a centralized model, based upon a philosophy of an intelligent and purposeful populace which worked in tandem with the collective needs of a labor-force reflective of a superior ideology.

Or so it seemed on paper.

What reality brought forth and what a planned model proposed, turned out to be entirely two different things.  And isn’t that true of life in general for the individual?  It is well to have a plan for one’s life; but adjustments must be made, and refinements must be allowed for, as the reality of circumstances reveal the imperfections of any human planning.  Perhaps an unexpected birth joyfully interrupts; a death in a family necessitates delaying certain endeavors; or an illness or injury impacts one’s ability to continue in the career of one’s chosen field of vocation.

Federal Disability Retirement filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an option which should be considered in the changing course of a person’s life-planning.  Perhaps it is not the most attractive or celebratory alternative to choose; but when limitations from the reality of life are imposed, one must not expect to choose from an endless series of options, but rather from those which are offered and realistically proposed.

For Federal and Postal workers, the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, is a choice offered as part of the total compensation package of one’s employment; and when needed, it is a choice which, fortunately, exists in order to be able to revise and reformulate one’s future plans.

By the way, what ever happened to those old Soviet Union 5-year plans?  Like so much of history, they temporarily disappeared onto the proverbial ash heaps of fiction and folly, only to be revived when history fails to teach its lesson of repetition and recurrence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Process Mentality

The importance of understanding that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, as a “process”, is critical in reaching the mental preparedness necessary to endure the potentiality of the lengthy encounter.

The analogy of the approach should be likened to the difference between WWI and WWII — of trench warfare as opposed to a blitzkrieg.  It is the former which must be prepared for, and not the latter.

For, at each step of the way — from waiting for the proper medical reports to be prepared by the treating doctors, to formulating the narrative of one’s statement of disability; to waiting for the agency to complete the processing of their potion (i.e., the Supervisor’s Statement and the Agency’s Certification of Reassignment and Accommodation efforts); to the intake processing unit of OPM at Boyers, PA, then down to Washington D.C. where assignment of the case will take some time; to final assignment of the case, and potential routing for review by a contract doctor — this is all merely at the First Stage of the process.

If it is denied at the First Stage, then one must fight the process through the Reconsideration Stage, and possibly beyond.

Thus is the mental preparation at the outset required in order to survive the multiplicity of bumps and turns within the process itself.  It is best to know the trials in order to survive the process, and to prepare for it as best one can.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Inevitability

The pervasive sense of inevitability is that innate sense of foreboding which will not be shaken off, that we know beyond mere acknowledgment of a fact, and further, that no amount of self-justification will contain or diminish the knowledge of the coming event.  To recognize the irrefutable future event may be based upon several factors:  past actions; personal encounters; a coalescence of the past and the present, culminating in the certainty of the future event.

In preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, such a sense of the future is often felt by the Federal or Postal employee — of the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

It may well be that the doctor still wants to perform additional tests or that certain other treatment modalities will be insisted upon; but the person who suffers from the medical condition is almost always the accurate gauge for the need to file.

Because medical conditions constitute a subjective state of being, where the “I” prevails in the ownership and knowledge of the medical condition, it is precisely why the Federal or Postal Worker who suffers from the medical condition is the one who best knows the extent, severity and capacity of the condition and its relation to one’s ability/inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

Inevitability is often known by the Federal or Postal Worker far in advance of the doctor, coworker, or family member; for, it is an inevitability itself that the future event known by the possessor of knowledge is the first to sense the inevitable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: The Durational Attitude, Or: “If Only I Had…”

There are periodic offers for an “early out”; or the ability upon reaching certain trigger points of leaving the Federal Government; or receiving OWCP benefits, which is certainly a higher rate of immediate return (assuming qualification and eligibility has been established); or even a settlement for a separation with some severance pay, a lump sum to settle a lawsuit, etc.

On the other hand, one of the advantages of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit, of course, is that the number of years which one remains on Federal Disability Retirement counts toward the total number of years of service, such that at age 62, when the Disability Retirement benefit is recalculated as regular retirement, those years on Disability Retirement are calculated into the benefit. Thus, for those who live to be a ripe old age, those differences in percentage points will continue to reap the benefits.

It is the long-term viewpoint which should always be considered; for, in later years, the durational perspective, if not taken, may well result in the rueful reminiscence of a forlorn, regretful attitude.  One may make statements of vacuity, such as, “I don’t live with regrets”; but the annuity and one’s bank account may tell a different story.

Planning for the future in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, entails, involves, and encapsulates more than just the “now” and the “present”; it is the immediacy of the future which one should always plan for.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Planning

A common consensus among those who contemplate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is that it is an unplanned event, and one which required decisions which shortened the career goals of the Federal or Postal employee.  Such an unplanned event, however, should not be left for lack of planning of the event itself — of preparing, formulating and filing for the Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Thus, a distinction should be made:  yes, the fact of the medical condition, and its unplanned impact upon one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, thereby cutting short the Federal or Postal career of the individual, is quite often something which is unexpected and beyond one’s control.

Once the realization that it is necessary to  file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM becomes apparent, however, one should not simply act in a manner which compounds the problems of lack of planning.  At that point, planning is essential to the entire endeavor:  the garnering of support from the medical community; the persuasive conversation which one must have with one’s treating medical provider; the decision of which medical conditions to include, how to state it, what to state; the preparation of the coordinated aspects of each of the strands of a Federal Disability Retirement application — these need to be planned for, in order to increase the chances of success at each stage of the Federal Disability Retirement process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: Mistakes Made

There is obviously an assumption to be made that if a case is denied at the initial stage of the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, that a “mistake” must have been made.  The mistake, then, is given an opportunity to be “corrected” at the Second, or Reconsideration Stage, of the Federal Disability Retirement process.  Further, if the mistake is not properly corrected, or corrected to the satisfaction of the Office of Personnel Management, and it is again denied — at the Reconsideration Stage of the process — then there is the cumulative assumption that further mistakes were made in the application.  Just as success distinguishes between winners and losers, the general assumption is that a denial by the Office of Personnel Management means that there was something inherently wrong with the Federal Disability Retirement application at its inception. 

Yet, if this were true at each turn, for every case, then there would never be a case where, at the Third Stage of the process, in filing an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board, that the Representative from the Office of Personnel Management would not reverse a denial and grant the disability retirement after listening to the legal arguments made by the attorney for the applicant.  Many times, it is the pointing out of overlooked aspects of a case which makes the difference between an approval or a denial — and not necessarily something that is inherently wrong, or that a “mistake” was made.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire