Last Updated on January 9, 2022 by FERS Disability Attorney
In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, make sure that the medical condition which the Federal or Postal employee is listing, describing and delineating, including the symptoms and impact, etc., is “relevant” to one’s Federal Disability Retirement application under either FERS or CSRS.
Let me clarify with the following (outlandish) hypothetical: A Federal employee has the job and positional duty of pushing a button with his right index finger once every 2 hours. He suffers a horrendous injury to his left shoulder, left arm, left leg and left side of his body. Use of the left side of his body is nowhere described or required in his position description, and the Agency has never requested that he use the left arm, shoulder or leg, or any part of the left side of his body, in performing the essential elements of his job. He prepares and formulates his Federal Disability Retirement application, describing the extent of his medical limitation of the left side of his body. Result: he is denied by the Office of Personnel Management because the relevance of his medical condition has not been established with respect to the essential elements of his job.
“Relevance” of a medical condition is essential to establish in a Federal Disability Retirement application. Now, had the Federal or Postal worker gone on to describe how the chronic and radiating pain from the left-sided injuries (taking the hypothetical one step further) impacted his ability to use his right index finger, and this was established through the medical opinion of his treating doctor, the case would have had merit and a basis for an appeal, argumentation, etc., would have been established.
But in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, it is important to understand and apply the basic principle in the Federal Disability Retirement case: It is not just the medical condition which is at issue; it must encompass the relevance of the medical condition to the essential elements of one’s job.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill
OPM Medical Disability Attorney
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