FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: The Uncooperative Doctor

Obviously, greater cooperation equals a smoother transition in every endeavor; it is the lack of cooperation which holds everything up.

In a Federal Disability Retirement case, a supportive doctor is almost always a necessary component in a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.  Yet, for the most part, doctors want to be — merely doctors.  That is, doctors generally hate the “administrative” side of practicing medicine — of the note-taking, dictation of office visits, annotating patient encounters, record-keeping; and, especially, of writing a narrative report in support of a Federal Disability Retirement application.  Why?  Simply because it is the tedious side of practicing medicine.

Sometimes, of course, depending upon the severity of the medical condition(s), a lengthy explanatory narrative is not necessary; but more often than not, an extensive, supportive narrative report is an important element in a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.  How does one “deal” with an uncooperative doctor?  There is no magical formula — but to simply attempt to garner a commitment from the treating doctor prior to initiating the complex process of preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, and to contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Technically correct

What does a person mean when it is said, “Yes, that is technically correct”?  Does it matter where the inflection resides, or which part of the statement is emphasized?  If greater syllabic magnification is placed on the word itself, whilst the remainder of the sentence is left in a monotone of boredom, is something else being conveyed beyond the mere words declared?

What if the hesitation on the first word is elongated, as in, “Ye-e-e-s, you are technically correct.”?  Or, how about this one:  “Y-e-e-e-s…you ARE technically correct.”?  Further, why do we always expect a conjunction to follow, as in, “Yes, you are technically correct, but…”?  Does such a sentence imply that a person can also be un-technically correct?  If so, what would that mean and what factors would be included in coming to such a conclusion?

What practical or real-life consequences are inherent in the truth of such a statement, such that it might alter or modify our approach to a given subject?  If an engineer is building a skyscraper and turns to the architect and says,” Yes, you may be technically correct, but the entire building could nonetheless collapse” — how is it possible that the architect could be “technically correct” yet mistake the un-technical side of things such that it could result in a life-threatening disaster?

Or, in law, if a lawyer is “technically correct” but might nevertheless lose a case before a jury, does that mean that the “technical” argument in the law may not carry the day because the jury might take into consideration factors other than the law itself in rendering its collective decision?  Yet, isn’t “the law” nothing more than an aggregate of technicalities to begin with, and therefore, does it even make sense to speak of being “technically correct” within the purview of the legal arena?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be technically filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether technically under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it may be technically correct that certain legal criteria must be technically met; however, when putting together a Federal Disability Retirement application, just remember that the technically sufficient Federal Disability Retirement application should always, technically speaking, contain an aggregation of medical documentation, legal argumentation and personal narrative combined to make an effective presentation, better guided by a legal technician otherwise known as a counselor, attorney or lawyer in this technically empowered universe — technically speaking, of course.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Remorseless solitude

How often is there a cry to be “left alone”?  By how many people, in what quantifiable slice of life and order of living despite obligations and responsibilities that may be abandoned, do we embrace those periods of remorseless solitude?

We are commanded to be “social animals”, by way of anthropologists who devise intricate paradigms of cultural historicity and ancestral heritage from mere fossils of partial bone fragments; via condemnation by psychologists who warn of the danger of those who are “loners” and become lost in the deviation of secluded thoughts and fantasies of vengeful imaginations; and by Mom and Dad who worry that the teenager who locks the door and surfs the enticements of the Internet undermines the very fabric of societal cohesion, and allows for deviancy to determine the dice of droll durations.

And so the guilt resides with a negation; for, when we do not interact, socialize and remain in the company of others, we are considered as rogues, antisocial occultists who harbor resentments like hermits who climb into caverns of caustic catacombs to care only of remorseless solitude.

Yet, in this din of modernity, where the endless cacophony of drumbeats, raised voices and electronic media bombardment ceaselessly invading, interrupting and interceding, where has the delicacy of inviolable solitude gone to?  At what point does self-reflection, thought, the play writer’s  “aside” and the soliloquy that contemplates the role of one’s self in the expansive universe become a self-possessing journey of mere selfish egoism?

Instead, we allow that being constantly “connected” with one another – through social media, Texting, Facebook, Instagram, Skyping and all of the other multitudinous methodologies of electronic communication and “connectivity” have become normalized, such that that which used to be a productive use of the proverbial “down time”  – enjoying the remorseless solitude by writing, or reading, or just reflecting —  is now considered strange and dangerous, while its opposite – of becoming obsessed with the persistent din of socialized life – is considered the normative ordinariness of daily living.

Remorseless solitude is the delicious walk in the woods alone; of meditating upon the quietude of a morning’s red dawn; and of communing with nature, whether in one’s backyard or in the outbacks of nature’s delight.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are forced and compelled into a status of remorseless solitude – not by choice, but by reason of a medical condition which targets the Federal or Postal employee into being “that person” who is considered the outcast, almost as if diagnosed with leprosy or some other horrible communicable disease – the isolation and separation by being identified with a person with a disability will have its negative effects.

Preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will not make things at the Federal agency or the Postal facility any better, until an approval is received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Then, once the Federal or Postal employee becomes a Federal Disability Retiree, perhaps you can enjoy that period of remorseless solitude that previously had been involuntarily imposed upon you by casting you as that deviant occultist no longer part of the mythical “team”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The limited reservoir

What if the reserve is limited, but we are never informed of it?  Perhaps the gods, fate or however the source of creation is defined, has placed a quota upon the extent of that which is expended, but we are never included in the corporate decision-making process – then, what?  Death, insanity or just plain debilitation and stoppage of activity; is that what we call “an unfortunate end”?

By “reservoir”, we normally mean that natural or artificial accumulation that is used for a specified purpose – the town’s water supply; a special cache of good wines; or perhaps, even that sixth player who is left sitting (a temporary “bench warmer” – though, perhaps in this climate of everyone being nice to each other, such terms are no longer considered appropriate) aside until a burst of fresh input is needed.

Concurrently, we expect that any depletion from the cistern is consistently replenished, except during periods of extreme droughts when we are forced to systematically make use of it with the justification that it is that for which we reserved it in the first place, and when times are better, we will take care in replacing that which seemed limitless just an eon ago.  And, why is it that when the main tank has been completely re-filled, we have a tendency towards excess and lavish spending, but when we hit the “reserve” indicator, suddenly we act with frugal caution and become responsible conservationist?

Is it because of our hereditary backgrounds as hunters and gatherers during a time of unknown and tenuous circumstances, when bodies hungrily stored fat in order to survive during those times of want and scarcity?

What if we are left with a limited number of words in life, and once expended, we become transformed into unnoticed mutes wandering across time, traversing the silence amidst others who have saved their reserve for future accessibility?

Life often “feels” like that – of having reached a point of depletion where the quota has been reached, the reservoir has been emptied, and the excess energy expired.

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 position, it often seems as if the reservoir needed in order to reach that golden mark when retirement age and cumulative years of Federal Service coalesce to allow for passing across the proverbial “finish line”, has been too early depleted.

Unfortunately, medical conditions hasten the reservoir of time, energy, patience and capacity to withstand the daily toil of workplace stresses and employment concerns, and there is often a need to access an alternate source of supply.

Federal Disability Retirement allows for that; it is a means to recognizing that the reservoir is limited, and that the medical condition has reached a critical point where replenishment is no longer an option.  Yet, even after a Federal Disability Retirement is achieved, the Federal and Postal worker can go out into the private sector and remain productive, and under the law, is allowed to make up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays, and still maintain employment and receive the annuity.

For, while the reservoir of one’s life and talents may indeed be limited, it is the limitation of self-imposed stubbornness in refusing to acknowledge that the medical condition has reached a critical point, that often defeats and depletes long before the fuel gauge indicates a warning light of that ever-blinking “danger” point.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Epochal Dawns

There are those momentous events in life which we mark and memorialize; and, in the end, whether the cumulative bag of goodies amounts to a positive aggregate, or a negation of sorrows, we determine in the quietude of private thoughts.  Avoidance of future uncertainty is a talent wrought only by humans; for animals of other species, they cannot afford such luxuries, as survival in the here and now constitutes reality of future causality.

For us, there is today; tomorrow will take care of itself within the constructs of fear, angst and uncertainty; and as Heidegger would have it, the projects we savor are the ones which delay thoughts of tomorrow, death, and the certainty of extinction.

What are those epochal dawns?  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it can include the advent of a medical condition.  In the beginning, in retrospect, perhaps it was of minor consequence; left as merely an afterthought, a nagging pain, or perhaps a singular moment of sudden urgency.  But the chronicity of life often parallels the longevity of a condition, and what was once a mere quibble may have turned into that momentous event.

Medical conditions belong in the bag of goodies set aside as “negatives”; and it may well lead to the necessity of considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Avoidance of the issue will not switch the bag of goodies from the negative to the positive; but once that decision is made to file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, it is up to each Federal and Postal employee to determine whether the future course of events — that “hereafter” and “post-disability retirement life” — will mean that there is yet a future of positives, and not merely a reverberation of past negatives.

And what of that “epochal dawn”?  It remains so only if the event itself stays in a motionless rut of stagnation, like those old films of a dying carcass stuck in the mud of a scorching desert sky, where the vultures of a future abyss fly above, waiting for their pick of tenderloin.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Nature’s Purposive Divide

Teleological ascription accounts for the rational foundation behind the activity of an organism, and explains the “why”, but not that it necessarily “is” or how it came to be.  Inertia is the very opposite, or perhaps in Heidegger’s universe, the “nothingness” as opposed to “being”.  When bees swarm in a frenzy, there is a “reason” for their activity; and just as the skittishness of a herd portends a sensing of danger, so the aggregation of ants streaming back and forth from a given point normally means a food source attracting for plunder.

We may speak about these occurrences in academic and esoteric ways, but the underlying foundation to it all is actually quite simple, but not necessarily simplistic:  Nature provides for a purpose to pursue, and that is what divides the living from the inertia which surrounds us.  And the rule of Nature and the idea of teleological impulse is that, when we lose that purposive divide, we become like the non-living substance which everywhere reminds us of the corollary of life:  death, and the loss of one’s soul.

Constancy of deterioration, progressive destruction, systematic downgrading, and persistent harassment can dampen the soul; but it is ultimately the loss of Nature’s purposive divide which finally stamps out the glowing flame within one’s soul.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, unbeknownst because of the flurry of daily activity, it is often the meaningfulness of the work one engages, which provides for that teleological impulse.  When a medical condition begins to pervade, and systematically denigrate and degrade the quality of that aspect of meaningfulness, and further, when the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service constantly and persistently acts to exacerbate and rob one’s joy of the projects of life, then it is time to consider 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.

Federal Disability Retirement through OPM allows for a further teleological chance and opportunity, by first securing a lifetime annuity, then allowing for earning income in the private sector and beginning a second career or vocation.  While many may not consider the securing of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity as a meaningful endeavor for one’s financial security, it is precisely the stability of income which allows for the Federal or Postal employee to turn one’s energies upon other and more important things, and to allow for Nature’s purposive divide to propel one forth into the community of men and women who separate themselves from the mass of humanity who see drones and crestfallen vestiges of souls who once rushed where fools had remained and lost that flickering flame of teleological pull.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Misfit

The herd mentality must of necessity have a survivability factor; otherwise, there is little to explain the illogical repetition of the historical recurrence of human folly for behavioral anthropology.  In the modern era, being “different” is a sign of rebellion, and the cultural tidal wave of the Sixties in altering the normative landscape of music, art, religion and social customs, revealed the pinnacle of self-destructive behavior — until it became clear that being a misfit itself was merely the convention.

Behaving “normally” means that one does not make “waves”; in a highly bureaucratized society, the importance of non-innovation and complete compliance is regarded as sacrosanct.  Loud, boisterous behavior; conduct outside of the normative inflexibility of societal perspectives; that which is acceptable as quirkiness or eccentricities, as opposed to destructive explosions of tendencies bordering upon insanity; the invisible line between the misfit and clinical commitment to a psychiatric facility is a thin reed, indeed.

Often, however, it is uncontrollable circumstances which impose upon an individual the unwanted label of being an “outsider”.  Medical conditions often have a tendency to promote such a state.  It is like being labeled a plague-carrying contagion by the CDC; once whispered, the rumors begin to spread.

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 job, being labeled a misfit becomes a “given”. Others begin to shy away from an association; some are told bluntly not to have contact with “that one”.

Loss of normative acceptance within any community or society is an important factor for success; somehow, despite all of the legal safeguards, EEO regulations and protective statutes applying to disabled individuals, the herd mentality of yore nevertheless prevails.  For Federal and Postal workers, the only pragmatic exit is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Is it a retreat or an escape?  Not really; rather, just a means of looking out for one’s own best interests.  The medical condition itself should always be paramount in considering one’s life; attending to it properly means that one must have the time and energy to treat the underlying malady; and continuing in an employment atmosphere where acceptance is avoided, and empathy is rare, is also an unstated definition of engaging in self-flagellation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Benefits: The Afterthought

It is perhaps best that anticipatory planning, based upon predictive analytics, is an afterthought for human intuition and predilection of priorities in life.  Otherwise, one can remain in a world of obsessive preventative maintenance of efforts, and never accomplish what needs to be done today.

Future forebodings aside, and whether an individual engages in hazardous duties which exponentially increase the statistical curve for the onset of an occupational disease or injury, or the development of a medical condition through repetitive and overuse of a particular appendage or anatomy; regardless, the bifurcation of thought from the daily aches and pains from one’s body, warning of impending and future difficulties, is ignored and banished, to be reflected upon in some future corner of pondering.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for relegating present concerns to the realm of an afterthought, and the benefit of disability retirement will naturally take a backseat for those in the youthful set, precisely because disability is associated with thoughts of avoidance, sort of in the company of old age, infirmity, and early onset of dementia.  As well it should be.  But for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves with a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, and therefore becomes a threat to one’s livelihood, the afterthought becomes the primary issue, and it is then that one sounds a heavy sigh of relief in knowing that an employment benefit includes a Federal Disability Retirement packet.  But once the acknowledgment comes to the fore, the reality further hits one, that you must prove your case, and it is not merely a matter of entitlement.

Federal Disability Retirement, filed through one’s agency if you are not separated for over 31 days, must ultimately arrive at the doorstep of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  OPM is the agency which makes the decision upon a Federal Disability Retirement application (and that’s the reason why this medical benefit is also known as ”OPM Disability Retirement”).

While there are minimum time in-service requirements (18 months under FERS and 5 years under CSRS), it is the compendium of proving one’s case under the legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, which must be submitted in order to win.  Afterthoughts are human evolutionary means of avoiding unseen dangers; but when the afterthought becomes a present danger, it is time to become aware of the surroundings, context, and content of the formidable opponent one must face.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire