The subject of today's post is whether obesity or morbid obesity may lead you to qualify for FRS or CSRS disability retirement through OPM. Obesity is a documented and diagnosable disease.
However, in the world of federal disability retirement applications, OPM employees and MSPB executive judges still insist that obesity is a matter of choice: morbidly obese postal workers or federal employees are at fault for their condition. For these reasons, OPM and MSPB appear to raise obese or morbidly obese individuals to higher standards.
Experts in the fields of medicine and medicine have identified many medical conditions, as well as physical and genetic effects that may lead to obesity in individuals. Some of these include: obesity, including: pituitary gland tumors, pituitary disease, craniopharyngioma, pseudohypoparathyroidism, decreased metabolic rate, radar-Willi syndrome, Frohlich syndrome, hypothyroidism, and certain Types of brain tumors, chromophobe adenomas and many more.
Although the development of medical science has shown that obesity is not just caused by eating too much, obesity, MSPB's administrative judges still have an old legal analysis of disability retirement appeals filed by federal employees or obese postal workers.
This is how it works. MSPB executive judges will start with a false premise: federal employees or postal workers diagnosed with obesity just eat too much or personal choices become obese.
The MSPB Administrative Judge will follow the premise of the error and come to the logical conclusion that federal employees or postal workers will be required to prove that they either: a] use medical advice for exercise and weight loss programs, these recommendations do not work, or b] exercise Medical advice for weight loss and medical weight is not advisable. This is the legal equivalent of MSPB, requiring diabetics to prove that they participated in the sugar reduction program and did not take it.
For obese or morbid obesity, the OPM and MSPB administrative judges believe that the ban on obesity "...not according to regulatory requirements, but from disease or injury itself, but from voluntary failure or refusal to take corrective or improvement measures."
An unforgettable decision suggests that extreme measures, such as "improved fasting" or "bypass surgery", may be too intense to be accepted by disabled retired applicants. The administrative judge did not say that "will" was too intense - it was just "probably" too intense.
Federal employees or postal workers are obese in two ways and are seeking to obtain disability retirement benefits from OPM to address this judicial and/or institutional bias against obesity or morbid obesity.
The first, and I think, the best is to eliminate any possibility that the Personnel Management Office or the Excellent System Protection Committee may come to a wrong conclusion. Talk to your treating doctor and ask him or her to include a letter in the federal disability retirement application stating any one or more of the following:
1] Weight loss programs and fasting and exercise are medical recommendations, but despite the best efforts of the patients, they have not been successful;
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2] Weight loss programs and fasting and exercise are not medically desirable and are not part of the patient's medical plan
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3] Weight loss programs and fasting and exercise actually hurt patients.
Any one or more of these statements from your attending physician should prevent OPM or MSPB from applying institutional bias against obesity.
The second way, this is the long-term litigation and long-term legal struggle that will take years to resolve. Challenge OPM and MSPB agency bias. Hire a lawyer who knows prejudice, participate in it for a long time, and see if you can overturn the MSPB precedent [or at least make a decision that clearly indicates that obese people have no positive responsibility to show that MSPB and OPM are following the weight loss treatment plan They are entitled to disability benefits. The cases in MSPB are progressing very quickly, the law is progressing very slowly, and long-term joint efforts are needed to challenge MSPB's institutional bias or morbid obesity.
While other federal employees and USPS staff members have records that they are unable to comply with the medical plan, they can be refused retirement, while obese people [and some people with mental health] are the only ones who effectively convince administrative judges. Their obesity is not a personal choice, or it can be solved by jumping and fasting.
Orignal From: Federal and USPS employees - Will OPM approve disability retirement due to obesity?
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