Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Collateral Source Impact

The persuasive impact from collateral sources can take one of two primary forms:  legal or medical.  In fighting for one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, it is becoming more and more apparent that the Office of Personnel Management is taking a very aggressive approach at evaluating each Federal Disability Retirement application.  

Whether this is a change in administrative policy — and no one knows or can find out, because only OPM possesses internal statistical findings of how many approvals versus rejections they have issued, year by year, over the past decade, and whether there is a significant change — or merely a “sense” by the undersigned writer; or, just as probable, there is a growing carelessness and lack of proper scrutiny because of a rush to catch up, resulting from the growing backlog of cases; whatever the multitude of reasons, it is important to utilize every tool available to the Federal or Postal worker in an effort to win one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  

Collateral sources of administrative determinations and medical conclusions, whether they originate from OWCP/DOL Second Opinion reports; SSDI determinations and the medical records and reports upon which they are based; VA rating increases, as well as findings from the VA disability determinations; military board findings; Agency determinations, including results from “Fitness for Duty” examinations; other “Independent Medical Examinations” — all constitute collateral sources of evidentiary relevance, depending upon a careful scrutiny of each piece of such evidence.  

It is unwise to include everything; everything must be reviewed prior to submission; collateral legal determinations should be justified with legal arguments and precedents; medical determinations should be carefully noted as part of the Federal Disability Retirement packet.  Federal and Postal workers who are filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS should use every means available, including collateral sources, both for legal as well as medical evidence, in the quest to win an approval from the Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Collateral Impact

In preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, there is the question of whether collateral or parallel venues of disability benefits can be applied for; whether there is a conflict between such “other” filings; and further, what impact each of the alternative sources have on each other.  

Such other venues of applied benefits could include the Office of Worker’s Compensation, under the Federal Employees Compensation Act/Department of Labor (OWCP/FECA/DOL); Social Security Disability; Unemployment compensation; VA Disability benefits, private disability policies, etc.

As a general rule, there is no reason why all of such benefits should not be applied for concurrently.  Is there a conflict between each?  By the term, “conflict”, would imply something negative or improper in the mere filing.  To that superficial question (and by “superficial” is merely meant an initial, fundamental question, and not as to the depth of any complexity), the answer is a simple “no”.  There is nothing improper in filing for multiple and concurrent benefits, so long as the questions asked by each benefit/entity is answered honestly and truthfully.  

As for “impact” between one or the other, some benefits have exclusive compensation (OWCP & FERS or CSRS disability annuities cannot be paid at the same time), some have offsetting benefits (FERS & SSDI offset each other); some have no impact on each other at all (VA benefits & Federal Disability Retirement benefits can be received concurrently, for example), while still others depend upon the language of the contract (e.g., private disability policies).  

A still further question concerns whether or not medical reports and benefit determinations from one source can impact, and in what way, another source.  That subject will be discussed in another blog.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire