USPS REASSESSMENT PROCESS KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

The USPS issued notice to employee national union offices and management associations on April 10, 2007 that it is gearing up its National Reassessment Process.

The Reassessment Process is "a program focused on reviewing all rehabilitation and limited duty assignments" for those USPS workers who have been injured on the job. If the USPS itself determines that it cannot find work for these injured employees, then the employees will be referred out for "possible placement" in vocational rehabilitation.

Interestingly the Reassessment Process is described by the USPS as involving three phases:

Phase one is the "search process".

Phase two is the "job offer process"

Phase three is the "no work available process".

The April 2007 notice announced that the USPS is now entering Phase two. The current Phase is predicted to involve tens of thousands of USPS employees across the country. Allegedly in this Phase the USPS will be determining by selective interview whether injured and impaired employees could be placed or outsourced to other jobs, most likely in the private sector. There is no real indication or explanation from the USPS what exact factors will be used to determine which employees are to be outsourced and which are not. Nor is there any clear indication of just how those injured employees are to be placed by the USPS into private sector jobs that then can accommodate their injuries and disabilities and at a cost to whom. However the very fact that Phase three of the reassessment process has already been introduced as the "no work available process" greatly indicates that there will likely be very little actual placement of injured USPS employees into other jobs, and more likely than not, the injured and disabled employees will be simply removed as no work is available on the federal roll.

What is Required to Qualify for Medical Disability Retirement?

Medical disability retirement is a program of disability annuity payments for federal employees. It is handled through the Office of Personnel management and thus commonly referred to as "OPM" medical disability retirement. As a general outline, to qualify for OPM, the claimant must have completed sufficient federal service, and become disabled due to a medical condition that prevents her from performing her assigned job duties, the federal employer can not accommodate her and the claimant can not have refused a reasonable offer of re-assignment to another vacant position.
The determination of entitlement to disability retirement must consider the following evidence: objective clinical findings; diagnoses and medical opinions; subjective evidence of pain and disability; evidence relating to the effect of the claimant's condition on her ability to perform in the grade or class of position last occupied; and evidence that the claimant was not qualified for reassignment to a vacant position at the same grade or level as the position she last occupied.
Claims for medical disability retirement must be filed before one year has passed since the claimant was last on the roll as a federal employee. The claim is processed through the OPM and appealed through the Merit System Protection Board.

Does My Fibromyalgia Qualify for Social Security Disability?

Fibromyalgia is a rheumatic disease of chronic inflammation of muscles, tendons and other tissue.The disease is poorly understood by the medical community and is only generally described by the American College of Rheumatology Guidelines as "primarily widespread pain in all four quadrants of the body".
Fibromyalgia can be disabling. But to do so for SSA disability is difficult. There is no known cause, there is no cure and most importantly its symptoms are entirely subjective. The diagnostic testing currently used and accepted by the medical community involves testing, matching of a detailed list of symptoms and a painstaking exclusion of other possible disorders. It is not unusual for the patient to have long periods of "nothing-wrong" diagnoses and still suffer from the disease. Although Fibromyalgia may not be a disease that is readily diagnosed in a lab, the Social Security Act does not require more to establish its presence. Brown v. Barnhart, 182 Fed. Appx. 771 (10th Cir. 2006)