FERS Medical Retirement from OPM: Internal Turmoil

A man walks out early in the morning to retrieve the newspaper thrown onto his driveway; from across the street, you see him; he looks vibrant, confident, self-assured; you think to yourself, “Why can’t I be like him?”  A woman, well-dressed, punctual, competent, with always a smile; a sure “go-getter” who will climb up the corporate ladder with ease; you think to yourself, “Some people are just successful and happy.  Why can’t I be like her?”

The calm before the earthquake; the tectonic plates which are invisible and the above-surface topography which has been undisturbed for centuries; then, one day, the calamity occurs, and buildings collapse and countless lives are buried and lost.  What happened?

It is always the unseen, internal (or beneath-ground) turmoil which is the “true” essence of a life, a geographical location, or an entire population which masks its veiled soul.

Plato and the entire history of Western Philosophy were based upon unmasking the essence of Truth by digging beyond the appearance of Falsity.  Human Beings, particularly, have a great knack for hiding the internal turmoil which is the truth of what we are.  The smile which masks the saddened eyes; the outward appearance of confidence which is a facade for the depression and sadness within; the quiet steadiness of nature before the convulsion of the volcanic eruption; all, the internal turmoil, hidden by the falsity on surface’s artificiality.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer form a medical condition such that the medical condition can no longer be masked, it is always the internal turmoil which cannot be contained, restrained or curtailed forever.  It may be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS laws, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of quieting that Internal Turmoil before it erupts like the quiet volcano waiting to reveal itself from behind the facade of contained quietude.

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 Attorney Legal Assistance: The Intended Goal

Every now and again, we see a video clip of the goal NOT intended — of a running back turned around and making for the wrong end zone; of a basketball player stick his or her leg out to block a pass, only to have the deflection make an arc and swish into the wrong basket; and other similar deviations from the intended goal.

Later in life, people forget to evaluate and analyze first what the intended goal is, before hazarding a lengthy trek towards the conclusion — i.e., years later, do we look at it and say to ourselves, “I should have…”.

OWCP under the Federal Department of Labor is one such animal where the intended goal is often overlooked.  OWCP is not a retirement system; instead, it is a benefit meant to return the Federal or Postal worker back to work.  FERS OPM Medical Retirement, on the other hand, is a system where one’s medical condition will allow the Federal or Postal worker to become eligible for early Federal or Postal Disability Retirement.

You can actually obtain an approval for FERS Disability Retirement while receiving OWCP benefits; you just can’t receive TTD and a FERS annuity concurrently, but you can have the FERS Disability Retirement approved but inactive.

The process for both is rather complicated, but if the intended goal is to retire early because you will never be able to go back to your former Federal or Postal job, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Yes, yes, OWCP pays more — for the present — but FERS Disability Retirement continues to build your retirement system by counting the years you remain on Federal Disability Retirement until age 62.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement, and begin to process of evaluating and analyzing the intended goal.

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.

 

OPM Medical Retirement Benefits: Swords and Shields

It is often in the manner by which one utilizes and applies an implement, which determines whether or not to characterize the tool as either a “sword” or a “shield”.  Thus, a shield used to pummel an opponent is to use the defensive tool as an offensive weapon, and the use of a traditional sword in parrying in order to ward off an attack, is to use the sword as a shield.

Words; language; “the law” — all can be used in offensive ways, as well as by defensive maneuvers.  Preemptive argumentation can be considered as both a sword and a shield, depending upon how the reasoned soliloquy is presented.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS, it is important to weave one’s legal argument both as swords and shields — providing legal citations, argumentation, reasoned explanations, etc., in presenting why you meet all of the legal requirements and criteria encompassing the global compendium of issues which need to be addressed, from invoking the Bruner Presumption when applicable; to explaining why the Bracey standard of accommodations has been met, and to preemptively strike against anticipated objections which will be plentiful and appearing to be valid, as argued by OPM.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that your swords and shields are adequately used and properly applied.

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 Employee Disability Retirement: Secondary Causation

Can a Federal or Postal employee obtain an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, of a Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefit under FERS, for secondary-causation conditions?

Cancer is a prime example — for, it is most often NOT the cancer itself which debilitates a person, but rather, the secondary causation: The residual effects and after-effects of Chemotherapy and/or Radiation therapy, resulting in numbness, neuropathic pain, cognitive dysfunctions, memory loss, inability to focus or concentrate — the compendium of secondarily caused impact originating from the necessary treatment of the primary cause.

Thus, the mistake that many Federal and Postal employees make in presenting a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is in the characterization of one’s medical condition.  Secondary Causation cases can be tricky, and how it is presented makes all of the difference.

Contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal and Postal Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not you qualify based upon a secondary causation condition.

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.

 

Help with Disability Retirement from Federal Agency or USPS: Cancel Culture

In modernity, it refers to the cultural attempt to silence a particular historical perspective, or to expunge certain elements deemed offensive or otherwise inflammatory.

The criticism, of course, is that a unilateral cancellation or ostracism fails to provide a platform for discussion, as discussion leads to the potentiality for reform, retraction, rehabilitation, and even apology.  Because the act of cancellation resides outside of the legal boundaries and criteria for appellate review, it can be done in a monolithic, unilateral manner, leading some to argue against the dangers of mistake, abuse, and mis-application.

Fortunately, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, the procedures of a cancel culture cannot be applied without redress and appeal.  If the U.S. Office of Personnel Management were to have the unilateral powers possessed by the modern entities involved in cancel culture, Federal annuitants and disability retirees would be in trouble.

Of course, OPM does systematically try and cancel one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits by sending out Form RI 30-1, then requiring greater and increasingly onerous demands for more and more documentation in order to satisfy their criteria for what constitutes “continuing disability”.

OPM’s cancel culture is perhaps the more serious one because it goes to the heart of a Federal or Postal annuitant’s source of income.  Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and respond to the unfair cancel culture of OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Government Employee Disability Retirement: Going Back

The salmon spawning, rabbits returning; other animals come back to the place of birth, the area most familiar, the site of birth’s imprint and early remembrance.  Going back is ingrained; it is done without thought, without reservation, and often without regard to consequences.  The job that we know; the house that we built; the friends we always knew; these bring about a sense of regularity, rhythm, comfort and a returning sense of restfulness; and so going back is as natural as sleeping.

What we don’t take into consideration is that, while we were gone, things may have changed.  This is the anomaly of life: For, we are geared towards expectations of sameness and similarity; that when we leave a room, it will remain the same when we return; when we see a friend again, we expect that he or she hasn’t changed; and when silence prevails, identity never ceases or alters.

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, going back can be a traumatic endeavor.  The essential elements of the position may have remained the same; the people at the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility may still be there; the work requirements are unchanged; but you have changed.  Your medical condition has forced the change.

Going back may not any longer be possible.

In that case, consult with an attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, lest going back results in consequences unthought, like a new pattern of harassment and a move to terminate you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Changes we resist

It is almost a tautology; two words placed together as synonyms; and, indeed, the word “change” and its neighbor, “resist” have a commonality that cannot be avoided: Both imply an alteration and a sense of life’s modification never to return back.

We resist it, precisely because we want it to remain the same; but change is inevitable, and to resist is to often engage in acts of futility against a tide which resists resistance.  Few of us welcome, let alone savor, changes in our lives; and when they first appear on the horizon of potentiality, we try and resist, to stop it, to alter the course of history’s onward march.

Perhaps we merely refuse to join in with the change; or have an inner attitude of non-acceptance; or sit gloomily and pout throughout the remainder of days simmering with resentment that we were forced to accept that which we never wanted.  It is like the divorce that shattered one’s childhood and from which we never recovered; the stepmother or stepfather who entered our lives only added salt to the wound where change was resisted but no one listened to our protestations and pleas, asking, “Why can’t it be the same as always?”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “change” and the “resistance” to change are inevitable dualities of life’s misgivings.

Perhaps you were once at the “top of your game” and considered the best at what you do; or, perhaps you thrived on anonymity and were happy to work in a quiet, unassuming way.  Regardless, the very thought of change is something you resisted, but a medical condition forced such a change whether you like it or not.

Change itself is always difficult, but there are ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities that accompany change: Consult with an attorney before engaging battle with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, while change may be like the uninvited stepmother or stepfather into one’s life, the change that truly becomes a tumultuous event is the one where you step forward into the unknown without any guidance or assistance.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal and Postal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Problems

We all have them; some, more than others; and by either quality or quantity, we often judge as to the burdens overloaded in our lives, comparing to others by contrast the significance of the impact of each, whether large or small, tragic and grandiose or irrelevant like a speck of a fly upon a windowsill in the basement where no one visits, anyway.

Wait long enough and they will sometimes go away; wait too long, and the little bothersome inkling may turn into an insurmountable gargantuan of a magnified adversity beyond human tolerability; and in the end, we are left with either being resigned to live with them, to solve them, or to simply survive them.

Problems are inherent to human living.  A wise pastor once said, “Where there are people, there are problems.”  This statement was a recognition that human interactions, relationships and the mere bunching up of personalities that conflict and become adversarial, in a world of limited means but unlimited emotional upheaval, by necessity invites problematic encounters.

We often think that, “If only I had…” — then, what?  That all problems would simply vanish?  Hardly, and most unlikely.  For, history has shown that in every endeavor that requires effort; in every relationship no matter the matching of perfection as to personality, temperament and compatibility; in the end, whether by external influences or internal derangements, conflict will erupt and problems will abound.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the necessity may arise for filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS offset.

In such a state of affairs, problems already are inherent — the medical condition itself.  The key, then, is not to compound the problem by trying to maneuver through a complex administrative process without legal expertise, but rather, to engage an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

In the end, it is the compounding of problems that can be controlled.  Problems will always be with us, but for the Federal or Postal employee who must contend with a medical condition and must file a Federal Disability Retirement application, always remember that it is the next step beyond the original problem that will often determine the future course of problems, and whether they can be limited or allowed to fester and boil over into a compounding of further problems.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: The rabbits we chase

The rabbits we chase are the ones that reveal not so much about our preferences, but more about who we are and the priorities we place.  For, as one walks about in life, whether in suburban neighborhoods where rabbits abound because no one shoots them for meals, anymore, and so they can multiply without natural restrictions for lack of predators, the fact that there are other things to pursue — but instead we choose the rabbit — tells others something about you.

Of course, it is the proverbial rabbit we speak about — of work at all cost, of refusing to concede that which is quite obvious to everyone else.

Much of real rabbit hunting, of course, is done by knowledge and pure observation — of how the animal reacts; in scurrying away, what route does it take?  What avoidance tactics are engaged?  In suburbia, you can no longer shoot a rabbit within the confines of the city limits, but there is no law that prevents you from doing what the American Indians were so good at — chasing one down, swooping with a strong arm and grabbing those pointed ears, all for a good lunchtime meal.

But of the other “rabbits” we pursue — of careers at the cost of our health, of tangential distractions that ultimately provide no foundational meaning in determining the destiny of sanctified thoughts and goals.

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, chasing rabbits is a familiar refrain — not because it is being done in various acts of futility, but because the rabbit itself is not just any ordinary rabbit, and doesn’t follow the standard paradigm of “rabbit-hood”.

For, it becomes clear that the very nature of the rabbit has changed — the Agency no longer recognizes that your years of toil and loyalty should mean anything; coworkers whisper and spread gossip; the level of productivity is declining; you are using “too much” Sick Leave or LWOP; the rabbit you are chasing doesn’t quite act in the same way, and you begin to wonder, Is it even worth pursuing?

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit that is there for the Federal or Postal employee who has finally come to the realization that not every rabbit is worth pursuing, and not every rabbit leads to a satisfying meal.  Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is likely the next best step in catching the rabbit of choice.  Now, for which rabbit hole to jump into …

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Silent lives defying interpretation

Life is a mystery, and individual lives a puzzle untold.  It is the calluses that we develop throughout our lives that diminish our individual and collective curiosity to get to know the “other”.

We are born with a teleological intellect striving to unravel and unmask the depths of human essence; but modernity, technology and the singular focus of tangents often involving prurient asides distract and envelop with unwavering obsessions, but it has gotten worse:  no, not in any violent manner or upheaval of historical significance; rather, the electronic means of texting, emailing, Facebook-ing and other such means – which, if one pauses for just a moment to reflect, is merely a white page on a screen of illuminating blindness where symbols representing communicative ignorance are exchanged through the ethereal conduit of airwaves – give an artificial semblance of comfort that we are still engaging in the essential project of destined human activity:  getting to know one another.

When, in fact, the distance between words and the human touch; the distinction between the beep apprising one of receiving a message and the subtleties of an eyebrow raised, a grimace faintly made or a sparkle from eyes admiring; or the differentiation between black lettering upon a lighted page as opposed to the intonation and undulating mellifluousness of the softly spoken word – these, we are losing as each day passes, unnoticed, unconcernedly, and without any real hope of recovery.

It is, in the end, those silent lives defying interpretation which are lost forever on the doorsteps of unwritten historical accounts, despite the stories never told, the narratives forever undeclared and the characters uncharted because of the mystery of life and the conundrum of human lives.

History, it has been said, is written by “winners”; and if there is indeed truth in such a statement, then its corollary opposite must be similarly true:  unwritten and unknown accounts are forgotten or never written of those “losers”.  But that is only half of the truth; for, there are those countless bystanders who are never acknowledge, but fail to be inserted and included in the narrative of unmarked graves unacknowledged through the accounts of history untold.

We all want to be “significant”; we all want to “make a difference”; and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition cuts short a promising career, a relevant contribution to the “mission” of the Federal Agency, or make a difference to an old woman living alone who waves hello to the Letter Carrier as the high-point of her day – filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may seem like the end of that teleological journey that we are all engaged in.

But always remember that there is life after the Federal workplace, and whether you are an active Federal or Postal employee, or getting ready to take that step to initiate a Federal Disability Retirement application, there are still silent lives defying interpretation, and yours is one of them.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire