Identifying the Right Bridge to Reach Your Destination: Federal Employee Disability Retirement

When considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, the natural inclination is to ask the seemingly primary question of: Does medical condition-X qualify as a disability? But such a question is in actuality secondary; it is the reverse-order and counterintuitive process which is often confusing for the Federal and Postal Worker who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The primary question, making the previously-stated questions secondary, is to ask: Does medical condition-X prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job?  By inverting the primary-secondary sequence, one can then attain a better level of understanding as to the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Further, such a switch in sequence of questions-to-answers allows for an important paradigm shift.  For, in the very asking of the proper question, one can reach a level of understanding to such a stage of comprehension that the question almost answers itself.

Medical conditions in and of themselves do not necessarily qualify the Federal or Postal Worker who is otherwise age or service-eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; it is the nexus which must be established between one’s position and the medical conditions one suffers from.  It is the crossing of that bridge which will reveal the extent of success or failure in attempting to go down this path; but first, the Federal or Postal Worker must correctly identify which bridge to cross, before even starting the long and arduous trek of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: Insular Worlds

The private domain of individual, insular worlds always remain unknowable and profoundly unreachable. We can extract common linguistic signposts to have some superficial encounters, with at least a semblance of comprehension; but in the end, can one ever “know” the sensation of pain which another experiences? Or the extreme emotional turmoil that a person who suffers from schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder; the diffuse pain of a person suffering from Fibromyalgia; or the cognitive dissonance of one beset by Major Depression, uncontrollable anxiety or panic attacks?

Yet, it is a necessary step in preparing, formulating and submitting a Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, to have the ability to convey, delineate and describe the nexus between one’s experiential phenomena of the insular world of a medical condition, and one’s external encounter with the Federal position in the work-world.

The private chaos of one’s medical condition must be linked to the public display of one’s physical or mental capacity and capability in the employment with the Federal Sector or the U.S. Postal Service; how one makes that connection, the manner of the description, and the characterization of the impact of the former upon the latter, will make all the difference in the world whether or not that unique universe of insularity can be protected from the progressive harm of one’s job.

For, in the end, it matters not whether one can adequately relate to another’s medical condition; it is enough to know that the private domain of one’s life is that which makes human consciousness the unique mystery peculiar to the human animal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: The Magnifying Event

The notable characteristic of a medical condition is that they rarely go away via wishful thinking and, moreover, while rest may provide a restorative period of relief, the return to performing activities which further exacerbate one’s condition further magnifies not only the chronicity and severity of the condition, but the need for additional restorative periods of relief.

That is why, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, the focus is upon the nexus between one’s medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job.  For the former, the nexus pinpoints the type of medical condition by focusing upon the primary aspects of the work; for the latter, that very connection between the former and latter magnifies the impact of the medical condition and why it is that Federal Disability Retirement benefits are needed and justified.

Whether a person is on furlough during this temporary period of insanity, or whether one has previously taken an extraordinary amount of Sick Leave, Annual Leave, or Leave without Pay, is an irrelevant issue in the end; for, the very need to take such excessive time off, as well as the inverse issue of growing work performance questions, both are magnifying events of the same revelation:  the medical condition is further exacerbated by the continuation of certain activities, and the activities are progressively prevented by the medical conditions.

Preparing the steps to formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, begins with the recognition that the ultimate answer lies not in the temporary and palliative nature of a week’s time off, but in the realization that one is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, for the long term.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire