Tag Archives: Simple strategies for Federal employees without attorney representation

Doctor Office Notes

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The Office of Personnel Management, in reviewing a FERS Disability Retirement application, will often request to see the doctor’s office/progress notes, detailing the history of treatment for the previous 18 months.

Such scrutiny of clinical notations made by the treating doctor is meant to verify and validate the statements made by the doctor in his or her medical narrative report, to see if there are internal contradictions between the clinical notes and the narrative report prepared for purposes of obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Such a review of clinical notes can be an unfair process, precisely because they are being reviewed with a paradigmatic purpose in mind: to “find” any inherently contradictory remarks or evidence which conflicts with statements made in the primary medical report.

Thus, reviewing the medical notes in a vacuum, outside of the context of the entirety of treatment, and with the intention and motive of seeking out any “discrepancies”, will sometimes result in a denial based upon selective interpretation of the office/progress notes.  Statements such as, “medications are helping”, “patient notes feeling better”, “Is sleeping much better”, can provide a false picture of the actual progress of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant.  Indeed, such a skewed picture will often come up in the denial letter issued by the Office of Personnel Management, where the denial letter will selectively quote from the progress notes.

This reminds one of a particular case where the Office of Personnel Management quoted from clinical notes, statements made by the applicant: “Feeling much better”; “Making great progress”; “overall doing very well.”  The problem, however, is that the applicant was permanently in a wheelchair, and the job was that of a Law Enforcement Officer. It was denied at the Initial Stage; at Reconsideration, when the pertinent facts were pointed out to OPM, it was quickly approved.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

FERS Disability Retirement is a benefit available to Federal Civil Service employees and U.S. Postal workers who meet certain medical and legal requirements.  To find out if you’d qualify for Federal Disability Retirement, please contact Attorney Robert R. McGill for a personal assessment of your case.

The Tool of Repetition

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Repetition is an important tool in any written genre; overuse of the tool can always backfire (is there an inherent conundrum in criticizing the tool of “repetition” by saying that it can be “overused” — probably), but in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS from the Office of Personnel Management, the importance of repetitively stating the important elements of one’s medical conditions and their impact upon one’s ability/inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job cannot be overstated.

As time is a commodity worth its span in gold, the assigned case worker or disability specialist (or whatever other name or designation given to the person at the Office of Personnel Management who will review one’s Federal Disability Retirement application for identification purposes) must use such time efficiently; and given the volume of cases which the Case Worker must evaluate, analyze and decide upon, the tool of repetition is important precisely because, in the short time-span within the volume of cases to be reviewed, the ability to catch the attention of the reviewer and to highlight the main points of one’s case by shouting out in bold-faced screams, is an effective way of presenting one’s case.

As paper-presentations go, they are silent vehicles of communication. However, within the neutral silence of being presented to the reader, it is important to repetitively state (and restate) the main points of a case in formulating one’s narrative in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability.  As with everything else, however, in preparing, formulating and filing a FERS Disability Retirement application, there is a danger point in using the tool of repetition: too much repetition can make one’s case appear to be “artificial” and conniving.

You don’t want to file a Federal Disability Retirement application by stating the FERS Disability Retirement application too repetitively because to overstate the Federal Disability Retirement application too many times would be to use the tool of repetition too much in a Federal Disability Retirement application (hope one gets it).

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Medical Retirement Benefits Lawyer

Neither your receipt of information from this blog, nor your use of this website to contact the author creates an attorney-client relationship between you and Attorney Robert R. McGill.  As a matter of policy, Attorney McGill does not accept a new client without first investigating for possible conflicts of interests and obtaining a signed engagement letter.  You may, however, first contact Robert over the phone for possible legal representation and to assess your probabilities of becoming a Federal Disability Retirement annuitant after the specifics of your case are evaluated.  An initial consultation with Attorney McGill is always free.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

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What does it mean to be “efficient”?  Is it distinguishable from being “effective”, or are the two inseparable?

In preparing, formulating and filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is important to be effective in submitting a paper presentation to the Office of Personnel Management.  Efficiency, while helpful, is not necessarily a precondition in order to be effective.

In an inverse manner, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is very effective in its procedural approach — the laws support such effectiveness, in that their decisions, time frames and arguments are effective in their very finality (leaving aside the issue of appeal rights, of course).  But is OPM efficient?  Most would argue that because of the recent inefficiencies reflected by their case-load backlog, that one could hardly describe OPM as being very “efficient”.

Thus, “effectiveness” and “efficiency” are two distinct concepts which are clearly separable.  If one were to choose which of the two characteristics one should embrace in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it would clearly be the former (effectiveness), as opposed to the latter (efficiency).  For, while time will fade, the final decision of whether one gets an approval or a denial in an OPM Disability Retirement case will not.

Being effective in fighting a case is the more important of the two characteristics, and sometimes, when one needs to be effective, one is not terribly efficient in the process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Attorney

The information appearing on this blog is provided for informational use only and is in no way intended to constitute legal advice.  Transmission or receipt of any information from this blog does not create an attorney-client relationship, and you should not act or rely upon any information appearing on this website without seeking the advice of a FERS Disability Retirement Attorney.

Keeping it Simple

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In almost all instances, stating the obvious when filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits is the rule to follow.  Another simple rule to follow: Keep it Simple.  Except in special circumstances (e.g., where there is a nebulous diagnosis and one must interweave multiple symptmatologies in order to bypass the possibility that you may be later precluded from “adding” a “new” medical condition, etc.), it is best to stick to a paradigm of a 1-to-1 ratio or correspondence of medical conditions, symptoms, impact upon work, etc.

Such a template can be dangerous to follow, however, because anyApplicant’s Statement of one’s disability should never appear mechanical or stilted in its tone and tenor.  Emotionalism should not be stripped from an Applicant’s Statement of one’s disability in a Federal Disability Retirement application and, indeed, sterility should not be a goal to be sought.

That goal should be from the treating doctor, where technical medical terms present a sense of diagnostic objectivity and scientific validity.  But such simple rules as presenting the correspondence between specific physical conditions with the physical requirements of one’s job, and similarly, between specific psychiatric symptoms with the cognitive requirements of one’s job, is an important “rule” to follow.

Remember, however, that filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS is not a “perfect science”; in fact, it is not a science at all, but a mix between law, personal input, and medical facts, with the creative force of persuasion.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

The content of this blog may include FERS Disability articles previously published in other websites by the same author.  While we do our best to maintain our content updated, laws and rules are constantly changing, and therefore we can’t guarantee the accuracy of the information presented in this website.  You may, however, contact the author, Attorney Robert R. McGill, if you have any specific questions about current laws and regulations and to request a general evaluation of your Federal Disability Retirement case.     

Stating the Obvious

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Sometimes, stating the obvious is necessary.  In filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits, and in dealing with the Office of Personnel Management, “stating the obvious” becomes not only a necessity, but a truism encapsulated in profundity surrounded by a simple rule: the greater the obviousness, the more effective the Federal Disability Retirement application.

For the applicant who files for Federal Disability benefits, who is unrepresented, it is best not to act as a lawyer.

While case-law and statutes abound as free information on the internet (and such information and discussion is certainly available on my website at the Federal Disability Lawyer blog and in various articles I have written on the subject), misinterpretation, misunderstanding, or mis-citation of cases, statutes, rules or regulations can easily be engaged in.

While generally harmless, and further, since many at the Office of Personnel Management are not even aware of the laws and case-laws governing the very subject which they are supposed to rule upon, what is the point (one might ask)?

The obvious point is for the future — to always predicate a case upon the simple truism that one stage in the process may not be enough, and so building a foundation for the next stage, and the stage after that, by preserving the legal and factual arguments for an eventual appeal, is always a necessary evil one must perform.  State the obvious — and state it multiple times.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

The information that appears in this blog is copyrighted.  Also, these articles may have been previously published in other Federal Disability Retirement websites by the same author or by other third-party publications.