Tag Archives: stress disability for federal employees

OPM Disability Retirement: The Freedom of Retirement

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In this still-fragile economy, many people are rightly concerned that, upon an approval for FERS Disability Retirement that it will be difficult to “make up” the income with another job, even though a person under Federal Disability Retirement can earn up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays.

Yes, it can be tough; yes, the economy is a concern; but recessions ultimately come to an end, and while a job to make up the severe pay-cut may be long in coming, self-employment, to begin a start-up business, or to work part-time is often an excellent opportunity.  Unlike having the larger percentage of pay under OWCP-DOL benefits, a Federal Disability Retirement annuity under FERS or CSRS is indeed a greater pay-cut.

But salary is not everything; the freedom of retirement, the ability to determine one’s future, and not be under the constant and close scrutiny of Worker’s Comp, accounts for much.  Where some see a severe pay-cut, others see as an opportunity to begin a second career.  And the price of freedom from those onerous fiefdoms of federal agencies is often better health, and greater enjoyment of one’s freedom and retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Disability Lawyer

 

Federal & Postal Service Disability Retirement: Experience & the Medical Condition

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Often, when a client receives the finalized Federal Disability Retirement packet, I receive a response that goes something like:  “I didn’t realize I was so bad off, until I read through the prepared packet.”  While I have not personally experienced the medical conditions of my many clients over the years, I have the experience of having spoken to them, and have learned about the symptoms, the words which best describe the pain, the impact, and the symptoms which are experienced on a daily basis.

That is why it is an absurdity for the Office of Personnel Management, for example, to continually and redundantly refer to Fibromyalgia cases as ones with symptoms which “wax and wane”.  Or, with severe Major Depression, Anxiety and panic attacks, the Office of Personnel Management will systematically deny many such claims by stating that there is no “objective medical evidence” to show that the individual is unable to continue to provide efficient service in a cognitive-intensive job.

It is the job of the attorney, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, to be the one who projects the experience of the disabled Federal or Postal employee.  The FERS attorney does not have to personally experience the medical condition in order to properly and descriptively convey the impact of the symptoms and debilitating conditions; however, it is helpful if the Federal Disability Attorney has had a wide range of experience — by having spoken to multiple individuals over the years who have personally experienced such conditions.  In this way, the FERS Attorney can obtain the experience to express the medical experience of the applicant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Employee’s Usefulness

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Federal Employees and Postal Employees should never consider or entertain the thought that filing for disability retirement benefits is a negative judgment upon his or her lengthy and productive career.

It is merely a statement of reality — that the Federal and Postal employee has had a good career; medical conditions may have shortened the first career, but this merely means that there will be opportunities to have a second career; and, in no way does it mean that there is a blemish upon the Federal career; merely that it is time to move on to something else.  And, indeed, the interruption of the Federal or Postal career as a result of impeding medical conditions merely is a statement that you are no longer a “good fit” for a particular kind of job.

Further, if you are removed from the Federal sector because of your medical inability to perform your job, such a removal is a “non-adversarial” and “non-disciplinary” action, and therefore (again) should not, and cannot, be considered a “blemish” upon one’s career.  And, finally, it is often the case that it is precisely because of the long and loyal hours you put into your job, that you paid a price for such loyalty — by embracing the stresses of the job, of working despite impending medical conditions.

In other words, very often I see that the stresses inherent in the position took a large and heavy toll upon the individual, such that medical conditions resulted from the long years of such heavy toll.  There is never a need to feel guilty about taking disability retirement; you’ve paid your dues; it is time to move on to another phase of your life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Do Psychiatric Disabilities Still Carry a Stigma?

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Do Psychiatric Conditions still carry a stigma?  Does the Office of Personnel Management, or the Merit Systems Protection Board, treat Psychiatric medical conditions any differently than, say, bulging discs, degenerative disc disease, or carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.?  Is there a greater need to explain the symptoms of psychiatric conditions, in preparing an Applicant’s Statement of Disability, than conditions which can be “verified” by diagnostic testing?  Obviously, the answer should be: There is no difference of review of the medical condition by OPM or the MSPB.

Certainly, this should be the case in light of Vanieken-Ryals v. OPM.  Neither OPM nor an MSPB Judge should be able to impose a requirement in disability retirement cases involving psychiatric disabilities, that there needs to be “objective medical evidence,” precisely because there is no statute or regulation governing disability retirement which imposes such a requirement that “objective” medical evidence is required to prove disability.  As I stated in previous articles, as long as the treating doctor of the disability retirement applicant utilizes “established diagnostic criteria” and applies modalities of treatment which are “consistent with generally accepted professional standards,” the evidence presented concerning psychiatric disabilities should not be treated any differently than that of physical disabilities.

As the Court in Vanieken-Ryals stated, OPM’s adherence to a rule which systematically demands medical evidence of an “objective” nature and refuses to consider “subjective” medical evidence, is “arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law.”  Yet, when preparing the Applicant’s Statement of Disability, it is always wise to utilize greater descriptive terms.  For, when dealing with medical conditions such as Bipolar disorder, Major Depression, panic attacks, anxiety, etc., one must use appropriate adjectives and “triggering”, emotional terms — if only to help the OPM representative or the Administrative Judge understand the human side of the story.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: When to Get an Attorney

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As I explain to all potential clients, whether an individual should attempt to obtain Federal disability retirement benefits with or without an attorney, is an individual and personal decision, based upon a number of factors.

I place everyone on a spectrum:  on the far left side of the spectrum is a Letter Carrier who becomes paralyzed.  That person does not need me as an attorney. He/she needs to gather the medical records, fill out the forms, and submit the application.  On the far right side of the spectrum is a Supervisor who goes out on “stress leave”.  That person should almost definitely hire an attorney, because disability retirement based upon the medical condition of stress alone, is difficult to obtain. Most Federal and Postal employees fall somewhere in-between those two extremes.  Further, and obviously, I believe that I am of assistance to my clients, and (hopefully), based upon the years of feedback I have received, my clients firmly believe that my legal methodology and approach were instrumental in obtaining disability retirement benefits for them.

Two further things to consider:  First, I rarely accept cases where an individual has filed the application, gotten it rejected, filed for reconsideration, gotten it rejected, and then went to the Merit Systems Protection Board where the Judge upheld OPM’s decision to deny the application:  when an individual has gone through all three Stages, and asks me to file a Petition for Review, I will normally not take on such a case.  I will, of course, consider being hired to re-file the case (assuming that the person has not been separated from service for over a year); but I cannot take on a case for a Petition for Review and further appeal when I have not been the one instrumental throughout the first three stages of the process.  Second, many individuals come to me with barely 30 days left to file.  I take on such “emergency cases” on a case-by-case basis, depending upon my time-allowance, my schedule, etc.

The Lesson:  Each individual must make the decision as to whether or not to hire an attorney, which attorney to hire, when to hire.  From my perspective:  Federal Disability Retirement is, when all is said and done, a process to secure the financial future and stability of one’s life.  As such, hire an attorney who specializes in Federal and Postal disability retirement, and hire one early on in the process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: Situational Disability II

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To reiterate: Situational disability can be an issue which can defeat a disability retirement application, precisely because OPM (and if it gets to the MSPB level, the Administrative Judge) can conclude that the Psychiatric disability in question originates and results in response to the hostile workplace environment.

These three concepts are important to understand — originate, result in, and result “in response to”. A psychiatric condition can originate from a hostile work environment, but as long as the medical condition then pervades beyond the work environment and impacts a person’s life through and through, then that alone does not constitute situational disability, because while it may have originated from A, it is not limited to A.

The second concept — results in — must be seen in the context of the condition of the psychiatric disability. Thus, does the (for example) Major Depression or anxiety result solely from the work environment, or does one experience the symptoms while at home, even while away from the work environment?

And thirdly, does the individual experience the symptoms of the psychiatric condition “in response to” his or her exposure to the work environment, or are the symptoms all-pervasive: i.e., throughout all aspects of the person’s life?

To differentiate these three concepts is important in avoiding the pitfalls of situational disability, and in helping to prepare a Psychiatrist in either preparing a medical narrative report, or in his or her testimony before an Administrative Judge at the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Summary legal update for FERS & CSRS disability retirement

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On my website, www.federaldisabilitylawyer.com, I give a more extensive explanation of a recent and important case impacting federal disability retirement applications, but I think that it is important for everyone filing, or contemplating filing, for disability retirement under FERS or CSRS, to be aware of the recent United States Court of Appeals case for the Federal Circuit, Vanieken-Ryals v. OPM, #2006-3260, decided on November 26, 2007, in which it was found that OPM’s adherence to the rule that they will refuse to “consider such medical evidence…for being ‘purely subjective’ is a critical legal error…and clearly prejudicial.”

Often, in cases involving cognitive impairment, psychiatric disabilities, disabilities involving diffuse and chronic pain, and those conditions such as Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue, etc. the Federal Circuit Court in Vanieken-Ryals has essentially held that OPM’s adherence to “objective evidence” is “unsupported in the law, was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.”

The Judge therein stated that OPM must consider the medical evidence that is submitted, and cannot attack a medical condition unless there is a doubt as to the “credentials or veracity [of the doctor],” and this is especially true where the doctor has “utilized established diagnostic criteria and [is] consistent with ‘generally accepted professional standards’ ” of medical practice.

This is an important case for Federal disability retirement applicants to use when filing for psychiatric medical disabilities, and for those “hard to define” cases (again, e.g., Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, etc.), because OPM will often declare as a basis for denial that the applicant lacked “objective medical evidence” or that there was no “objective diagnostic tests” showing the medical condition. This is, to use a very well-know legal term, now considered “baloney”. As long as the doctor has applied established diagnostic criteria and generally accepted professional standards, unless OPM can attack the credentials of the doctor, they must consider the medical evidence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire