Paradigm Shifts and the Federal Employee Disability Retirement System, an Option That Was Always There

Paradigms are meant to shift.  A non-shifting paradigm means that there is an inherent and entrenched belief system which refuses to accommodate changes.  Certain principles can retain such intractable resistance; deeply-held systems based upon historical convention, customs and cultural foundations should never be discarded without a rational basis; but to hold on to a set of beliefs without a foundational methodology of defending the very core of a system, is to merely do something out of habit.  And that is the point, isn’t it?  Actions based upon habit for habit’s sake, are mere thoughtless and unjustified movements.

Work often becomes such an unprovoked endeavor; for, to engage in mindless, repetitive modalities, provides a semblance of security and safeguards.  Then, when a medical condition interrupts one’s life, you begin to miss the mundane.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the yearning for that time before when the monotony of repetitive work provided the assurance of routine and repose, begins to magnify with exponential significance.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, should always be an option.  If one pauses because the paradigm which one operates under has become intractable and entrenched, it is time to consider a paradigm shift.  It is not only in science that paradigm shifts are necessary; and, indeed, Thomas Kuhn’s contribution to the historical perspective of scientific progression has taught us much, both as to disciplines, as well as for individuals.

The shifting of one’s own paradigm may be the first important shift in making a proper decision concerning the preparatory steps in filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement; and that is the key, both in science, and in one’s own personal life and endeavors.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: GPS or Map Reading

Unforeseen consequences have become the expected norm; for, as technology progressively innovates, the quickened pace of advancement defies any allowance for thoughtful retrospection, leaving aside the need for anticipatory planning, as to the future impact of present actions.  Creating an antiseptic society which declares that simplicity of thoughtless actions is the goal to achieve, should anticipate a tremendous stunting of evolutionary progress.

For, if the theory of evolution is based upon environmental stresses which force microcosmic mutations, then what would be the reverse impact — when technology unburdens such stresses?  We no longer read maps; the GPS tells us where to go, when to turn, what street we are on, and when we have arrived.  We are daily told what to do; we need not figure out anything, anymore.  When we encounter a life-situation where our involvement and active participation is crucial to the success of an endeavor or process, the training which we have previously been given will reveal itself.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, must by necessity be an active one, and not passive.  Decisions must be made; steps must be initiated; statutory and regulatory processes must be followed.

Life does not run the course of an electronic voice emitted by one’s Smart phone; some functions must engage the mind of the participant; map reading is still a skill which may be required, when the technology we relied upon fails to deliver.  Medical conditions have a tendency to stifle, and that is entirely understandable.  But the rest of the world continues to forge forward, and so do administrative processes, whether we like them or not.

In the end, the minor evolutionary mutations are never dependent upon any singular act of inaction; but the cumulative impact of a population waiting for direction can be altered by a single Federal or Postal employee who takes the affirmative step in preparing for his or her future by deciding to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — if not for the greater populace, then at least for his or her personal life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Universe of the Possible (Part II of II)

When avenues are closed off, the human psyche tends to shut down; and when grounds manifest fertile regeneration and bountiful splendor, the endless state of the possible opens like the gaping eyes of a child in excitable wonderment.  That is why internet companies attempt to artificially recreate atmospheres of creativity and prior glory days of unbounded imaginations.  But whether simulating a couch plopped in one’s basement or garage, and making it appear as if the environment is similar to those past dawns of tinkering with one’s imagination in the unheated, primitive conditions of one’s youth, is questionable.

For the Federal and Postal employee who is faced initially with a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability to continue in the vocation and career choice of one’s following, the limitations which the present condition places upon one’s future often seems daunting.

But there are options available.

Federal Disability Retirement allows for those options to open up; for, once the Federal or Postal employee obtains an approval for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, that (now former) Federal or Postal employee may go out into the private sector and earn up to 80% of what one’s former position currently pays, on top of the Federal Disability annuity. Many start their own businesses; others perform consultative work or work part time, thereby controlling the stresses and the extent of activity able to be tolerated within the restrictions of one’s medical conditions.

The avenue of the possible can only reopen once you recognize the reality of the probable; and in order to tap into the fertile imaginations of a brighter future, the roadblocks once observed must be moved in order to travel down the path of viable alternative routes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: The Flashpoint

The flashpoint is the temperature at which an organic compound becomes combustible; during the entire time building up to that point, the rising temperature in combination with the chemical reactiveness of the substance was all the while sitting in preparation for the point of ignition; were there options to pursue prior to the point of ignition?  If there had been a change in chemical make-up, then perhaps the point of temperature-to-combination of substance would have altered, where either a higher or lower flashpoint would occur; or, the rise of the temperature, and the rate of acceleration, could have been changed.

Whatever the needed changes in order to avoid the flashpoint, however, one thing is clear:  the options are limited, and any altered states would merely delay the ultimate event of a flashpoint occurrence.

For Federal and Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the flashpoint of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is an inevitability which leaves the Federal or Postal employee similarly limited options.

One can continue in the mode of life which one finds one’s self in: of the daily treadmill of suffering through the workday with pain, profound fatigue and progressively debilitated emotional turmoil.  Or, one can wait for the Agency to initiate an adverse action, such as a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), periodic suspensions or reprimands — or removal.  Or, one can begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Limited options do not necessarily constitute a flashpoint of negative consequences; yes, a fire bursting in a home is a tragedy, but then there are controlled fires and even naturally occurring ones in fields of decay which benefit the environment.

It is thus ultimately up to the Federal or Postal employee to determine the point of combustibility, and therefore the timing of the event identified as the flashpoint.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Getting to Your Final Destination

Following a GPS can be a nerve-wracking experience.  Yes, there are ways to override specific elements; yes, you always have to be smarter than the technology which one utilizes; but since we have come to a point in our ordinary lives of placing reliance upon technological efficiency, the natural course of events is to simply enter the vehicle, punch in a destination point, and follow blindly.

It is a metaphor of how we operate in the world in all aspects of our lives; and while we like to engage in self-aggrandizements of how we are the highest beings in intelligence, innovation and inventiveness, the fact of our ordinary lives betrays the simplicity of our mindlessly habitual actions.

Following blindly a GPS is rarely the shortest route; it is never the most efficient way; and it is almost certainly not the road to be taken as the safest course.  Once there, of course, all questions about the manner of “how” one got there, disappears; but it is often important to consider the “how”, and not merely the fact that one got there.

Similarly, for Federal and Postal employees who are seeking to obtain a period of respite, it is important to consider “how” one will get there.  Trudging along and slogging through routes without considering the options and avenues will often result in the further deterioration of one’s health.  Mindlessly and repetitively doing the same thing will not advance an individual one iota towards the destination that one seeks.

Federal Disability Retirement is an option which should be considered, and whether one is under FERS or CSRS, it is an avenue which may be the singular road which effectively “gets there” for the Federal or Postal Worker who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s job.  It is an option worth considering, but one which the Federal or Postal Worker must “override” the mindlessness of continuing in the same course as yesterday, and the day before.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Magnification of a Reputation

The person whose reputation precedes him/her has the disadvantage of having one’s actions immediately placed into categories defined by the perspective of prior judgments.  And so it is with Federal and Postal employees who begin to exhibit chronic medical conditions which impact one’s ability/inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

The Federal or Postal employee who begins to use up sick leave; who is viewed as doing less than his or her coworkers; who has taken LWOP and invoked the protection of FMLA; the reputation itself becomes magnified, to the extent that nothing which one does, accomplishes, or sets out to do is judged on its own merits; rather, it is within the perspective of, “Well, you know how it is with that person…”

Many a career path have been ruined because of the inability or unwillingness of an organization, an agency or a department to allow for a recuperative period of rehabilitation for a worker who suffers from a medical condition.  Medical conditions have an insidious way of not only debilitating a person physically and mentally; moreover, it infects the very environment of the workplace with gossip and malicious suspicions of motives and intentions.

Federal Disability Retirement is an option available for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, and further, if the condition will last a minimum of 12 months.  The chronicity of the condition is often more than physical or mental; it may well have extended into the nefarious universe of workplace hostility, and such an infection can only be cured by the extraction of the Federal or Postal worker from the workplace itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement for Civilian Federal Employees: A Path to Consider

Of course, when a person begins his or her career with the Federal Government, the consideration of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit does not enter into the equation of accepting the position.  Most Federal and Postal workers would rather work and be healthy, than to resort to preparing and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  

Indeed, the problem with Federal and Postal workers is not that the option of Federal Disability Retirement is considered or taken; rather, the problem lies more in the fact that it is an option of last resort — which is probably how it should be, however necessary such an option must be for many Federal and Postal Workers.  But at some point in the linear continuum of a person’s career, where health and work collide and one must make a choice between the two, it is too often the case that the Federal or Postal worker has passed the point of “reasonableness” in preparing and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  

It is rare that it is ever “too late” to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits (unless we are talking about missing the Statute of Limitations in filing); but most Federal and Postal workers, whether from a sense of duty, commitment, or sheer stubbornness, will work beyond the point of a well-reasoned and informed state of health or self-preservation. But however and whenever that point of finally choosing the path of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, comes about, one should prepare one’s case carefully; formulate the disability retirement application with care and foresight; and file it in a timely manner.  

When the time comes, and the path to a recuperative period of one’s life is finally considered, it should be done “right” — as much as one has invested in the effort of work itself throughout one’s career.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Choosing from the Options

The self-evident approach to making a right choice is to first understand what one’s choices are comprised of; yet, for many, this necessary first step is never taken, and so the option taken is based upon the choices presented, and not upon the greater universe of alternatives available.  If the parent asks the child in an ice cream store, “Do you want chocolate or vanilla?”, the unsuspecting child will choose from the options presented — until the child observes the one standing in front, who has just received another flavor.  “How about that one?” is the natural next query.

In preparing, formulating and filing for FERS Disability Pension benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, there is a universe of options which present themselves in concentric circles of choices within options within alternatives — but in order to make any positive steps towards accepting any of them, one must first be aware of them.

Thus, whether the Federal Agency moves forward to remove a Federal or Postal worker based upon reason X, may not be the only option if you don’t know that there may be an alternative option for removal, or to negotiate a delay of the option itself; whether OWCP/FECA, or OPM Disability Pension, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or VA benefits, or a combination of some or all to be approved; whether the basis should be medical condition A, B & C, or E, F & G, or a combination of some of each category; all such options need to be reviewed and the universe of alternatives explored, until the last and crucial decision is made of picking one over another.

Wisdom first begins with exploring the explorable universe; if one believes that one’s crib is the only universe in existence, then that will be the one which defines the confinement of one’s life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Medical Disability Specialist

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Clarification of Options

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 often necessary to perform a methodological analysis similar to a “risk-benefits” evaluation before proceeding down the path in attempting to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that one is eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The risks versus benefits analysis should already have been performed:  the necessity of filing because of one’s medical conditions should have answered any such issues arising from such a concern.  The “other” analytical approach, however, often revolves around the ever-prevalent and uniquely human ability to endlessly ruminate:  the “What if” syndrome.  What if I don’t get the disability retirement?  What if my agency terminates me before I get approved?  What if…

Such questions, while important to consider, should be first preceded by the overarching “what-if” question of all, which generally answers all subsequent similar questions:  “What if I don’t file?”  Presumably, one comes to a point in deciding to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because of a medical condition which has progressively or suddenly come to a point where it prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

Given that, the options to be clarified are quite simple:  If one does not file, then one will either have to continue working in the same or similar capacity; or one can resign and walk away, perhaps with a deferred retirement at age 65.  Are any of those options truly viable?  Ergo, many — if not all — of the other “what if” questions resolve themselves by first clarifying the penultimate what-if question.

Sequential clarification of one’s options is an important step in the reflective process of decision-making; take the time to consider the options; clarify the options; then, when the decision to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefitsbecomes a matter of necessity, move forward with the view that one will be approved precisely because the facts prove the case, without engaging in the self-defeating, very-human endeavor of self-doubt and questioning.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire