Last Updated on April 30, 2010 by FERS Disability Attorney
The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or, perhaps those who are impliedly involved herein are not so innocent after all. Nevertheless, the names must be changed to protect confidentiality of sources, etc. Every now and then, the Office of Personnel Management discloses their arsenal of weapons. For instance, such an arsenal might be that a denial of a Federal Disability Retirement application was based upon a review by a retired contract doctor. Now, let us analyze such an arsenal. First, the term “retired” reveals an interesting concept. It means that the individual no longer sees hundreds of patients on a daily basis, nor is actively practicing medicine. Next, on a superficial level, we take the word “contract” — meaning thereby that the individual is paid to review the paper submissions — not to examine the applicant who is filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits. And, finally, the concept of a “doctor” — let us be certain as to the two preceding words, “retired” and “contract”, and that is the extent which one needs to understand in accepting the definition of the word “doctor”. As opposed to: the treating doctor of an applicant for Federal Disability Retirement. Who would you choose to treat you?
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire