Federal employees and postal workers have the option to apply for disability retirement from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). The purpose of this article is to summarize the key elements of a Federal Disability Retirement application.
Eligibility. First, you must be eligible to apply. A federal employee gains basic eligibility by meeting certain time-in-service requirements. For FERS employees, you must have completed at least 18 months of continuous creditable service in a position subject to FERS. For CSRS employees, you must have completed five years of continuous creditable service.
Disability
Once basic eligibility has been proven, the federal employee or USPS employee must show that they have a disabling medical condition. OPM will consider a disabling medical condition or disease for your disability retirement application if you: 1) have a medical condition or disease; 2) that medical condition or illness results in a deficiency in performance, conduct, or attendance. Another way to show that your medical condition is disabling, particularly if there is no deficiency in performance, conduct or attendance, is to prove that your medical condition or illness is incompatible with useful and efficient service or retention in your position. current.
This is the most difficult t element to test. You should consider presenting evidence of the following to prove the element of disability:
1) Objective clinical findings from your treating physicians and specialists, including written evidence of diagnoses and medical opinions;
2) Your own evidence of pain and disability. This is called subjective evidence and may include an affidavit from you describing how the pain of the disability affects you as well. It can include statements from co-workers, family members, friends, anyone with the ability to observe your physical pain due to medical conditions. The more obvious the physical pain and the more obvious the medical condition, the more likely it is that laymen’s views on pain and disability will be given weight. This type of “subjective evidence” will only have probative value on the part of the MSPB and the OPM when it is supported by competent and objective medical evidence.
3) Any other evidence showing that your medical condition or illness affects your ability to perform your current civil service job, to the level expected of your grade or class.
It’s more,
Continuity
Once the federal employee or USPS worker has demonstrated to OPM that they have basic eligibility, and has demonstrated to OPM that they have a disabling medical condition, the federal employee/postal worker will need to demonstrate to OPM that the condition is continuing. . In other words, if your disabling medical condition is expected to continue for at least 1 year from the date you filed your disability retirement claim, then you may meet the continuation element. This prevents employees with temporary conditions from receiving disability retirement benefits. This is the easiest element to test, but sometimes it seems to be the easiest to miss in the application.
Housing/Reassignment After demonstrating basic eligibility, disability, and continuation, the federal employee or USPS employee applying for federal disability retirement must demonstrate to OPM that their employing agency is unable to accommodate the disability (under the Disability Act). Americans with Disabilities Amendments and/or Rehabilitation Act, etc.) . This is usually done by submitting your completed application to your employing agency’s human resources office, who will work with the supervisor to prepare your “Supervisor Statement”. This is a form that the Agency will add to your disability retirement application and submit to OPM. A word of warning: if the Agency has made a reasonable offer of reassignment to a vacant position that you turned down, then you will not be able to receive disability retirement. If you receive a job offer from your Agency or the Office of Workers’ Compensation (OWCP), you should consider contacting an attorney representing federal employees before making your decision. The wrong decision could have significant financial ramifications.
Social Security Disability Application. The last important element of a complete OPM disability retirement application is that the federal employee or postal employee must also apply for Social Security disability when seeking OPM disability retirement. He doesn’t actually have to receive Social Security Disability, but if he does, there could be a couple of results. First, your OPM annuity will be reduced so you don’t “reinvest twice” the federal government for the same disability. Second, if your Social Security Disability is approved before your OPM disability, you can use that as evidence to support your OPM disability retirement application. Third, if your Social Security Disability is approved after your Federal Disability Pension is approved, then you could end up owing money to OPM and you may have to follow Federal Regulations known as “set aside” provisions.
If your initial application for federal disability retirement is denied, you will have one opportunity to request that OPM reconsider the decision: you must file this request for reconsideration within thirty (30) days of the denial of federal disability retirement or not get more appeals later. If your request for reconsideration is denied, you will most likely have the right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).