OPM Disability Retirement: Influences

The fear that failure experienced in one path & process will impact and influence another process is one that is often of concern.

When a Federal or Postal employee files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, there are often concurrent and parallel paths which are undertaken — whether it is concurrently filing for OWCP (Worker’s Comp) benefits; SSDI (which is a requirement under FERS, anyway); a third-party personal injury claim; application for unemployment benefits, etc.  And then, of course, there are EEOC Complaints which may be filed; collateral lawsuits, and other administrative and judicial processes which may be entered into in parallel fashion.

Do any of these other processes impact or influence a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS?

Fortunately, Agencies are like uncoordinated hands appended to multiple personnel with different brains and different neurological centers; rarely do they communicate with each other.

Even assuming, however, that some sort of communication does occur, because the applicable laws and criteria which govern each independent administrative process is different from each other, it is rare that a denial in one administrative process will adversely impact a Federal Disability Retirement application for a Federal or Postal employee under FERS or CSRS.  Imagine that — Federal agencies not coordinating with each other.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits for Federal & Postal Employees: Logic, Art & Simplicity

Logic is the pathway out of a conundrum; complexity is often the result of confusion; clarity is the consequence of simplicity.  Yes, there are complex minefields in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS & CSRS.  The complexity of the entire process is often the result of layers upon layers of legal case laws and statutory refinements and interpretations which form the entirety of the “legal criteria” which surrounds each and every application for Federal Disability Retirement.  When an individual files an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, he or she is often unaware of the long history of all of the applicants who preceded the singular case being presently contemplated, formulated, and projected for filing.  Instead, that individual looks upon his or her disability retirement application without regard to what preceded it.

Perhaps it is best that most applicants are unaware of the thousands of cases which have impacted the entire process over decades; yet, when the glitch occurs — when an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is denied — then the importance of knowing the precedent-setting cases which have impacted the various and complex issues surrounding OPM Disability Retirement come into focus.  That is why it is best to be prepared beforehand, and to understand the logic behind the laws; by understanding, to realize the simplicity of the process; and by such realization, to put together an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  Such a process is often more than logic and law; it rises to the level of an art form.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: The “Cover” of an FCE

Most doctors are unfamiliar with the process of obtaining Federal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS, but are more often than not familiar with the process, procedures, and correlative headaches associated with Worker’s Comp benefits.  Because of this greater familiarity, there is often an underlying suspicion that comes along with it — that rendering any medical opinion must be accompanied by some underlying justification and “objective” methodology of supporting the medical opinion.  And this is understandable. 

In this day and age of malpractice lawsuits, of questioning every test, procedure and opinion, it is rare that a medical doctor is comfortable and secure in rendering a medical opinion about one’s ability or inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, based solely or primarily upon clinical examinations and reviewing of diagnostic results. 

Enter the FCE — the “Functional Capacity Evaluation”.  The FCE provides “cover” for a doctor’s medical opinion, because the doctor can point to an apparently “objective” evaluation — a third party rendering a number of physical tests, exertional exercises, physical capacity movements, etc., which serve to provide a framework from which a doctor can render an “objective ” opinion. 

Why it is accepted that pointing to someone else’s evaluation — as opposed to relying upon one’s own clinical examinations, reviewing one’s history, reviewing diagnostic test results, etc. — is any more valid, is a great mystery.  But if it makes the doctor feel more comfortable, then a person considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS should go ahead and agree to submit to an FCE, if that is what it takes to get the doctor on board.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire