FERS Medical Disability Retirement Law: Doctor’s Orders

Does strict compliance with doctor’s orders guarantee recovery and good health?

Quite obviously — not.  Medicine is not a science, although it is “science-based”.  The history of medicine — including psychiatry — does not have a pretty history.  It possesses a lineage of trial and error; of successes and failures; of applications which now appear barbaric; but of great and impactful discoveries, as well, including antibiotics and medicines which have saved lives.

Doctor’s orders, in the end, constitute the bare minimum; the rest is often up the individual as to what further to do: Of reducing stress; of eating healthily; of changing or discarding bad habits; of exercising and changing the lifestyle habits which harm.

And what about filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS?

If you are a Federal or Postal employee who has at least 18 months of Federal Service, you may be eligible — but you must also follow the doctor’s orders.  That is one of the “unspoken” requirements of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — to be compliant with the medical regimens ordered, to see whether or not you have tried everything in order to get better.

For, OPM’s argument is that if the doctor’s orders are not followed, it can never be known whether or not it was the medical condition which prevented the Federal employee or Postal Service employee from performing his or her job, or the lack of compliance which intervened.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether you have followed the “doctor’s orders” before you begin the process of following the “Lawyer’s orders”.

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.

 

Federal & Postal Worker Disability Retirement Benefits: Time Spent

We have all had that experience — of time spent, perhaps on a project, a hobby, a career goal or some other pursuit — but which resulted in a dead end.  Time spent on something which fails to produce the fruit desired is often considered “wasted time”; or, perhaps something is salvageable, like some lesson learned which can then be transferred to the next pursuance of something worthwhile.

But time spent on something which has no possibility of a positive outcome — like a medical condition which is becoming a chronic, intractable fact of life — becomes a self-defeating pursuit.  For, what is the purpose of such time which is spent?  It is merely to obsess upon a condition of one’s life, to deplore its effects and become despondent over the future.

Time spent upon dead-end thought-processes is merely to waste and whittle the time away for no good reason.

Better to put one’s energies into securing one’s future by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, then to turn one’s energy and time upon another career beyond the federal government.  Contact an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and begin the process of reevaluating the time spent on what you can no longer do, as opposed to spending time on what you might be able to do in the future.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Troubled Life

Is it a redundancy and a tautology to put the two words together?  For, one may assume that every life is “troubled”, and everything in the universe that is troubled involves a “life”.  So, if one concept necessarily entails another, why do we even have to bother to explicitly point out the co-dependent concept?  Thus would one say if you hear the word, “Life”.  Oh, then it must be troubled.  Or, if you heard someone mention that there was “trouble” in such and such a place, you would merely add, “Oh, yes, there must be a live person there, then.”

Of course, one could argue that the reason why we must clarify one concept with another is because (A) A different and separate concept can also be attached to the other word and (B) It is not necessarily so that an if-then conditional exists — meaning thereby that there are, arguably, “untroubled” lives as well, as least for brief moments in the life of an individual.  As one pastor was heard to say long ago, however: “Where there are people, there are problems.”  True enough.

To live a life for any length of time is by necessity to encounter problems and troubles; for, that is the nature of human existence.

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 job, “trouble” becomes exponentially pronounced because of the impact upon one’s life that a medical condition necessarily brings.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, of course, can often mitigate the trouble and help one live a life that is less troubled, by allowing the Federal or Postal employee to focus more upon one’s health and less upon the adversarial nature and friction which arises from one’s inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney to discuss the possibility of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, and see whether or not “trouble” does not necessarily have to entail “life”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Retirement Benefits: Forever and a Day

The concept itself is a conundrum; it is to emphasize the extension beyond eternity when eternity itself cannot be extended by self-definition.  The “add-on” of the extra day provokes the idea that it goes just a little further than that which we can comprehend; and yet, we can barely, if at all, comprehend the concept of “forever” itself.

For certain ideas, can we “feel” concepts better than we can “understand” them?  That, in and of itself, of course, is a puzzling concept; for, words, ideas and concepts are posited to intellectually comprehend as opposed to applying an emotive conceptualization of it.  To “feel” that you understand a word or a concept is quite different from comprehending it intellectually.  Yet, doesn’t the idea of “pain” fit into that category?

A person who experiences a great deal of pain may not be able to understand it, and yet he or she “feels” it, and in the very existential experiencing of the phenomena, comprehends it better than the person who merely reads about it but never experiences it.  Furthermore, the person who “understands” pain has a greater comprehension of the phrase, “forever and a day” — for the two are similar in experiences; the one is a medical condition that can barely be described; the other, a concept of existence that is similar to unendurable pain.

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 feeling that life has become “forever and a day” is a familiar one, precisely because of the unendurable stresses inherent in trying to balance work, home, the medical condition and the growing stresses of it all.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is a step towards realizing that days do not need to become lost in weeks, weeks into months and months into years, where the pain or other medical condition, physical or psychiatric, must by necessity be an unendurable conflagration of existence.

FERS Disability Retirement is a means to an end — the end being, having the time and energy to focus upon one’s health; the means, to retire medically from a situation that has become untenable; all, in order to recognize that “forever and a day” begins with a day that can be differentiated from the “forever” that never seems to end.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The world of others

Sometime between birth and self-awareness, there comes a point of consciousness where recognition that this is a world of others becomes unavoidable.  Perhaps it is that critical juncture where an adjustment is then made, or not, which determines whether or not children revert back to the insularity of inner worlds, or compromise and allow for greater interaction with the outer universe, despite the inherent dangers presented.

The sense of “I” as opposed to the outer universe likely comes first, but the two are so intertwined that they cannot develop without one another — the self is unable to distinguish the distinction unless there is the “other” to posit as a contrast to the self.

The World of Others is a frightening thought; for, the implications are that control of one’s own world is potentially endangered by active agents uncontrolled by one’s own will; when a foreign will is introduced into the equation, we lose control of our ability — and as importantly, our confidence — that events small and great can be shaped with predicability.

As adults, we take for granted the world of others; we are thus taught at an early age to worry only about things that we have control over, and let the rest go — lest the unfettered universe of the world of others, so expansive and without boundaries, would place so much stress upon our cognitive capacity to worry and be concerned, that a mental breakdown might occur as a result.

Look at people who are deemed “control freaks” — they are constantly anxious because they must always maintain the world around and manipulate each and every aspect of tangential lives.  In the end, the microcosm of control is of limited means; the will of others can only be boxed in when weaker personalities submit to stronger ones, but even then, the unpredictability of human nature reveals the ineffectiveness of unfettered dominance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and must necessarily “deal” with the World of Others — Agency actions; Postal harassment; adverse actions and retaliatory impositions — in a manner that distracts from the singular goal of trying to regain and maintain one’s health, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may be the best solution.

The World of Others cannot ultimately be controlled; what you have is the ability and capacity to control your own fate and destiny, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM is one such step that is within your control.  Now, as for what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does and doesn’t do — that remains in the World of Others, and perhaps you should consider having an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law handle that aspect of the World of Others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: The “rush” job

There is a difference, of course, between a “rush” job and a “sloppy” one; and while the two can be one and the same, there are circumstances where the former is necessary but does not necessarily have to result in the latter.

Procrastination is often the harbinger of sloppiness, and having to “rush” at the last minute is normally a natural and inevitable consequence of it.  Most events, issues and problems arising in life are never real emergencies; we make of them so because we allow them to fester and grow, like those molds left in petri dishes once reserved for science experiments that become fodder for science fiction novellas.

Medical conditions have a way of adding to complexities and delaying circumstances otherwise traveling on a normal course of events; things just tend to “pile up” like dishes first left in the sink, then another few, until suddenly one realizes that the stack that began with a single unwashed plate is now a tottering semblance of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and another emergency to attend to.

Suddenly, everything needs to be done yesterday; and what was once something that needed to be done sometime in the obscure future, demands attention today, yesterday and the day before that.  What one does not know, or is not aware of, of course, is often ignored, and deliciously cast aside — for ignorance is bliss and not recognizing what is slowly evolving in the dark corners of the unreachable abyss, though harmful, is better left unknown.  Or so we think.  Wrongly, as it turns out.

Like medical conditions left undiagnosed, we go through life happily ignorant; or like actions of a Federal Agency while the Federal or Postal employee is taking too much time off to go to medical appointments or trying to get better — is it better not to know what supervisors and managers are discussing behind one’s back?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have waited and waited, hoping that one’s medical condition will get better, will somewhat improve, or otherwise disappear altogether, and who have now exhausted all SL, AL and the patience of the Agency or Postal Facility in taking LWOP, perhaps a PIP is in sight, or the “end” is nigh and an adversarial action is “in the works”; or, perhaps none of that is but a faraway matter to be concerned with.

Whatever the circumstances, life brings about emergencies, and maybe even triggers a “rush” job; but always remember that the end-focus is to prepare, formulate and file an effective and persuasive Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and the “rush” job that is suddenly an emergency needs to be tempered by excellence, lest sloppiness hinders the efficacy of rushing that which is important for one’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Analogies

It is the greater concept often developed through metaphors and similes; but to the extent they are now of use depends largely upon the shared cultural context within which we live.  If Classical literature is no longer the common thread of meaningful discourse, can references to them in creating analogies work?  To share that a person’s tragedy is more Shakespeare than Milton, or that the individual’s circumstances remind one more akin to The Road to Wigan Pier than Brideshead Revisited, can such conversations take on a relevant pathway if the intellectual divide fails to be crossed?

You can, of course, always Google and quickly get the quick rundown of the literary reference through electronic Spark Notes, or some other venue of shortcutting the arduous endeavor reserved in former times; but even that may reveal an inadequacy that cannot be overcome.  For, of what part of the book or author is being referred to?  Is it any particular play or poem, or the entirety of the work itself?  Is it any specific character or scene?

Some philosophers have posited that, by and large, we comprehend and make sense of the objective world through the use of analogies, built upon by metaphors and similes; for, language itself is a conglomerate of such literary devices.  To face the universe purely for survival’s sake is to forego the need for imposing the ordering through language; animals do not require it, but in the most rudimentary of mechanisms that advance warning signs and preemptive communications; it is only in the arena of human constructs where categorical imperatives need to be assigned in order to filter the world into more palatable and circumscribed entities for processing the complexities we have created.

Analogies thus communicate through the medium of shared conceptual constructs, where we draw in the recipient and spectator, the audience of our targeted comparisons, by relating a shared, known and familiar encapsulation of linguistic constructs.  It is only when the strangeness of the metaphor, the unfamiliarity of the reference, creates further puzzlement and loss of connection, that problems occur and relationships become fissures of language games gone awry.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees 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 positional duties, the applicability of providing a foundational construct of relating one’s story to an “administrative specialist” at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will often involve – and require – analogies by default.

Use them sparingly; utilize discretion; and, in writing up one’s narrative in response to the questions posed on SF 3112A (Applicant’s Statement of Disability), remember that this is not the time, the context or the best place to try out radical, untested metaphors, similes or analogies.

Thus, while those who have read Orwell’s work, The Road to Wigan Pier, as well as Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, may find a clever and appropriate place in one’s Applicant’s Statement of Disability to make some brilliant literary reference, it may be more prudent to stick to the medical facts and incorporate those supportive documents in dealing with analogies of life, health, and the nexus between the latter and one’s Federal or Postal job duties.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire