Last Updated on December 7, 2010 by FERS Disability Attorney
The Office of Personnel Management will often request that a doctor’s “office” or “treatment” notes be attached for approximately the last 1 – 2 years. What is the purpose of this request? Normally, to compare whether or not the doctor’s treatment notes reveal the consistency with what is stated in the narrative report prepared by the doctor. This is often unfair, of course, because the purpose of office notes is quite different from the purpose behind a narrative report requested to support a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.
Office notes often reflect a cursory overview of the type of treatment rendered, and will sometimes contain statements of the positive advances and treatment responses of the patient/applicant, including any progress made in response to therapy, surgery, treatment, and medication regimens. Thus, statements such as, “patient is showing good progress” or “Patient comes in today feeling much better” may be used by the Office of Personnel Management to deny a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS, and yet such statements must always be seen within the context of treatment, and in no way are inconsistent with a medical narrative report which clearly and unequivocally shows that a Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job. Next: How to overcome OPM’s unwarranted focus upon the Office/Treatment notes.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Tags:
attorney representing federal workers for disability throughout the United States,
believing on opm's excuses to deny your federal disability benefits,
considering opm's methodology,
CSRS disability retirement federal attorney,
deciding what medical documentation is relevant to your opm claim,
federal disability attorney,
FERS disability retirement,
getting relevant medical documentation key in securing opm disability,
how the owcp and opm deny temporary and total disability claims,
importance of the narrative report on opm disability,
making an effort to preempt opm's future legal arguments,
making sense out of the opm's reasoning,
medical documentation required to get an opm disability approval,
medical narrative reports that support a federal employee's claim,
medication treatment on federal disability retirement cases,
more about the medical documentation in the fers disability application,
nationwide representation of federal employees,
opm medical documents,
opm's error track-record,
opm's excuses to deny your federal disability retirement,
opm's reviews for federal disability elegibility,
OWCP disability retirement,
representing federal employees from any us government agency,
selectively rebutting some of opm's reasons for denial,
statutory requirements in OPM disability law,
support to a physician's medical narrative,
the opm must evaluate medical documentation,
the opm's decision to approve or deny federal disability retirement,
the opm's power of the opion in federal disability matters,
understanding opm's methodology to develop own,
USPS disability retirement benefits,
usps medical documentation requirements,
what the opm can do to deny your disability retirement application,
when opm request additional medical documentation,
when opm's decision is unreasonable,
your medical retirement claim and the opm's selective picks