If you’re a federal worker with a medical condition or injury, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement. Even if you’re currently receiving payments from the OWCP for an ongoing federal workers compensation claim, you may still be eligible for a Federal Disability Retirement advantage.
Top 3 Questions About Federal Disability Retirement
There are three main questions we get from federal employees pertaining to Federal Disability Retirement. In this article, we will tackle question #1.
The first question is: Why should I take a Federal Disability Retirement, or what is the advantage of it?
The second question is: Why shouldn’t I just stay on my modified job duty assignment with my employing agency?
And the third question and probably the most common question is: Why shouldn’t I just stay on my federal workers compensation wage loss benefits?
These are all very valid questions, and certainly some people will choose not to apply for disability retirement. However, our main goal today, is to tackle these questions, one at a time and give you the answers you need to make the right decision. And remember this isn’t to convince you to take disability. It’s to show you the reasons why it can be such a great benefit to so many federal employees by highlighting a main Federal Disability advantage.
Question #1
First let’s go over the question: Why shouldn’t I remain on my federal workers comp benefits?
This answer can actually get really complex but the reality is that federal workers compensation benefits typically pay more than federal disability retirement will.
But you must remember that federal workers compensation wage loss is definitely not a long-term solution to the problem that you’re having. It doesn’t provide a retirement plan, where federal disability retirement does. It is actually already built into your FERS or CSRS retirement pension plan.
It allows you to move on with your life, explore different career in the private sector and earn income on top of the Federal Disability Retirement. That can be your long-term solution to the problem that you’re having.
Another kind of scary thing too is that federal workers compensation can follow you around and take video surveillance to monitor your work activity.
And best of all, if you are on workers comp, you can go ahead and apply for the disability, get approved, and then place benefit on hold while you continue to draw the higher check from the OWCP. It is sort of acts like an insurance policy something that you can always hold onto in case anything were to ever happens to your workers comp benefit.
Remember to stay tuned for the second article of this series where we talk about: Why should I take a federal disability retirement as opposed to staying on a modified job assignment with my employing agency? It should be coming to you soon, so stay tuned.
Looking Ahead
I am sure that this didn’t answer all of your questions about why should I take a Federal Disability Retirement as opposed to staying on my workers comp benefits and that’s why we welcome you guys to give us a call at any time and/or schedule a FREE consultation, our office is here to help.
At Harris Federal, we help federal employees understand their rights. Please don’t forget to Like us on Facebook, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and send us your questions to hello@harrisfederal.com. We want to serve federal employees in any way that we can. That’s why we are constantly trying to add new, relevant content through our blog posts.
