Federal Medical Disability Retirement: Your Basic Rights? Better....

Federal Medical Disability Retirement is a program similar to social security disability, for federal employees. It is overseen by the Office of Personnel Management so is commonly referred to as OPM disability.

OPM disability is for those federal employees who due to disease or injury, or combinations of both, can no longer perform their assigned job and their federal employer cannot accommodate or re-assign them elsewhere.

Claims for OPM disability are filed by the employee through their personnel office. If denied, then the employee has the right to appeal his claim for benefits to the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB).

If denied by the MSPB the employee then has the right to appeal his claim to the federal court system, specifically the US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.

OPM claims are more and more being processed on-line, and in fact the OPM and MSPB actively encourage claims to be processed on-line to speed up the claims process.
Thus, depending on the facts, OPM claims can commonly be completed in as few as 6 months, but average at least a couple of years for most claims.

OPM benefits, once awarded, are paid as an annuity and are fully taxable.