Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Rushing a Case

“Penny wise, Pound foolish” is an adage which has struck around, for it goes to the heart of the matter: One skimps at the beginning but must then pay a hefty price in the end.  Rushing something is tantamount to the same idea — and while it may not cost one in terms of money, it does so in terms of time.

Often, the best things in life take time to mature, to develop, to formulate.  While there are certainly times when putting together something is a necessity (such as when the statute of limitations is approaching quickly), most other and ordinary times require the slow, methodical and systematic approach of developing properly, formulating meticulously and creating intricately the process in which one is engaged.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, contact an attorney to discuss developing and formulating one’s strategy, substance of the case, and the initiation of the legal methodology so that “rushing a case” is never an issue.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Stronger/Weaker

It is a categorization at the most basic level — one that is seen daily in Nature and reflected in the human narrative of historical tides and tragedies.  The stronger dominate the weaker; the latter submits to the former, or flees in terror or dies while trying.

In modernity, the password that protects one’s technological contraption is determined for sufficiency based upon that most basic of identities: stronger or weaker.  The bully on the playground will scan the potentiality for complete dominance at the beginning of each school year, based upon the appearance of how one projects one’s self on the very first day.

Throughout the continuum of life’s encounters, no matter how much we may resist becoming pigeonholed into such simplistic bifurcations — whether of our physical stature; our creative energies; our proclivities and mannerisms, etc. — in the end, we all revert back to the foundational elements of our evolutionary ancestors and systematically deem this event or that capacity as either “stronger” or “weaker”.

We like to think that in our advanced state of civilization, such simplistic terms have become muted because of the heightened level of sophistication (i.e., thus the “revenge of the nerds”, where brain overcomes braun); but our true natures nevertheless tend to reveal themselves despite our best efforts to resist.  It is no different in the arena of “the law” than in all other categories.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the issue of “stronger” versus “weaker” continues to dominate: One’s medical condition places one in the “weaker” position as against the Federal Agency or the Postal Service.

The Federal Agency or the Postal Facility may begin to assert its “stronger” position by a series of adverse actions initiated to establish a paper-trail leading to ultimate termination, including a “Performance Improvement Plan” (otherwise referred to by the acronym, “PIP”); and when the Federal or Postal employee takes the necessary steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is important to try and gain the “stronger” advantage by enhancing, in every way possible, one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

There are few “slam-dunk” cases when it comes to a Federal Disability Retirement application.  While the applicant may “believe” his or her case cannot possibly be denied — naturally, because the applicant who tries to prepare the case on his or her own is the same person who suffers from the medical condition upon which the Federal Employee Disability Retirement application is based, and so there is lost a sense of “objectivity” as to the strength or weakness of a case — most cases must be assessed on a scale of “Stronger/Weaker”, and such an assessment is based upon the multiplicity of factors analyzed, including: Does the available and current case-law support the application?  Does the medical documentation sufficiently meet the eligibility criteria under the law?  Will the Agency’s portion of the Federal Disability Retirement application undermine the Applicant’s portion, under the law?

In the end, the law itself determines the basis of a Federal Disability Retirement case in its most basic form of whether a case is “stronger” or “weaker”, and to determine that important aspect of assessing and evaluating a case, consultation with a specialist in Federal Disability Retirement Law is a “must” in this world where nature’s disposition towards the Stronger/Weaker bifurcation continues to dominate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early OPM Retirement for Medical Incapacity: The many tomorrows yet to come

Does hope lie fallow when the basket of tomorrows become numbered too few?  When endless tomorrows lay before one’s imagination, too numerous to count that one need not bother, does that purport to show that one has a great quantity of hope, or merely that youth’s folly allows for a carefree tomorrow where an eternity of tomorrows can never be reduced to a handful beyond a few todays?  Can time and incremental portions of divided moments be quantified in that manner?

That has always been an anomaly for the undersigned writer — the quantification of time, as in the manner that religious beliefs are scoffed at when it comes to the story of genesis.  For, those who hold to the strict construction and literal meaning of the timeline of how old the earth is, count the obscure generational extensions of people who lived in former times, and somehow declare that the world is X-amount of years old.  How one can calculate with precision that which is not explicitly stated is a conundrum in and of itself, leaving aside the issue of whether time can be quantified if the order of the planetary system and our specific galactic orbit had not yet been established.

Evolutionists, of course, contend that the world was clearly created billions of years ago.  To both, the question is:  Tell me the logical difference between the following 2 statements — 1. The world was created a long time ago, and 2. The world was created billions of years ago.  Do humans have the capacity to imagine time beyond the present moment, or perhaps yesterday or a couple of days ago?  What does it mean to say to a person, “A type of human being walked the earth 10 million years ago”?  One can barely remember where one has placed the screwdriver used last week, and yet people want to put some significance upon a belief-system that purports to quantify time.

Ultimately, the question of whether one believes that the earth is a mere 10,000 years old, or billions of years in the making, is not a factual or scientific one; it is, a political condemnation that categorizes a person’s religious belief into a bifurcated system of: Is he/she “scientific” or “religious”?  In the end, time cannot be so easily quantified; rather, it is a basis of hope and an anticipation of a future yet to be resolved.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal and Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal position, time often becomes paralyzed, much like our imagined world of dinosaurs and prehistoric images of those Pleistocene eras and beyond; and as time is unable to be made meaningful except in the here and now — by imagining the many tomorrows yet to come — preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application that lets you project a life beyond the present-day circumstances of pain, medical conditions and deteriorating health, is the singular differentiating way that humans can separate themselves from other species: with hope.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Lawyer: Reality, perspective & medical condition

Reality is the existence of Being; perspective, the Kantian structures of how we see things; and a medical condition is that intervening, interrupting and corroding event that may render the first and second of this tripartite concept into a skewering of prospects.

Of course, a medical condition impacts the reality of a situation, especially a person’s ability, capacity and initiative towards a goal, and further, one’s perspective may become completely altered as a result of the event –priorities may change, the goals one has may be pared back, and even the enthusiasm towards certain things may become modified.  That is why a medical condition is sometimes considered a “game changer” in the reality and perspective of one’s life.

Life is full of bumps and bridges; of trespasses and rightful directions; and even of encounters with empathy, love and kindness; and though the reality of one’s situation may often appear that any perspective other than one seen through the eyes of meanness, cruelty and hardened hearts is merely a child’s dream of a fantasyland long passed and forever extinguished, there are still times of joy to look forward to, moments of smiles and days of sunshine left.

A medical condition is often a dark cloud, but a proper perspective on the reality of that darkness needs to be gathered.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who sees nothing but turmoil, disaster and progressive deterioration because of the medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, 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, may lend the Federal or Postal employee a different perspective on the reality of one’s situation.

No, filing an OPM Disability Retirement application will not be the answer to all of reality’s problems, but it may change one’s perspective as to the dark cloud that has gathered upon the reality of that medical condition that won’t seem to go away.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire