If OWCP determined your schedule award by having Ari Kaz MD review your file and prepare a district medical advisor (DMA) memo, there is great likelihood that your rating is lower than it should have been and you should not accept the determination.

For several months I have been pointing out to OWCP's National Office that correspondence routinely mailed by OWCP is being run through their postage meter (and who knows when they actually give it to the USPS) one to five days AFTER the date marked on correspondence. This can have devastating consequences to a FECA claim as your time to respond is based upon the date on the letter, unless you save the postmarked envelope AND you communicate about this with your claims examin

Open Season is upon us, go to the OPM website and plan your open season changes: https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/open-season

Dear Acting Secretary Pizzella, The federal government operates its own administrative process for federal employees workers compensation claims through the OWCP. There is NEVER a settlement in these claims and until a claimant is better or dies, they remain entitled to benefits due to OWCP’s refusal to settle claims. It has come to my attention that OWCP is knowingly allowing the federal record center to destroy all of the OWCP paper files. Many FECA claimants who have suffe

For some reason, I have spoken with several federal employees employees recently who, shortly after they were injured and filed a claim for FECA benefits, decided to resign because they were afraid that they would be fired. That can be fatal to someone being entitled to wage loss benefits in an OWCP claim. When your claim gets approved, and you claim lost wages, OWCP will ask your employing agency why they did not accommodate you. If your agency responds that they did not acc

I recently heard of a claimant whose benefits are handled by the Cleveland OWCP office who received a letter demanding that the claimant travel 4.5 hours to meet with an individual who was identified as a Quality Assurance Specialist (QAS). This time the letter did not provide the name of the person the claimant was to meet with. The last time I saw a letter like this, the person identified as the QAS was actually a criminal investigator from USDOL. Its not clear whether the

OWCP updated the way their phone system works when calling your claims examiner earlier this year. One annoying delay is that your claims examiner is required to use a lengthy script for their voicemail message. If you do not need to hear that message, just press the number "1" when the claims examiner's message starts playing and you will skip directly into voicemail.

I have many clients who unfortunately have serious disabling injuries that will prevent them from returning to work for the rest of their lives. In the madness that is living with a life altering injury and dealing with OWCP, people sometimes never get around to updating their life insurance beneficiary choice. Recently, a client passed away who had never updated his life insurance to list his wife of many years. Instead, his life insurance went to a cousin who had had little

Several years ago OWCP cut off direct claimant access to the Claimant Query System (CQS) due to massive amounts of medical billing fraud due to the very weak log in authentication utilized at that time. Subsequently, OWCP claimants were only able to access CQS information if they remained active federal employees through the National Finance Center (NFC) web interface. However, claimants who were no longer federal employees and their representatives have had no online access

I frequently speak to OWCP claimants who do not know what specific medical conditions their case is approved for. This can lead to problems when it turns out your case was only approved for a minor condition or aspects of your injuries were never accepted. This is also important information to share with your doctors as bills will not get paid, surgery will not get authorized, and a multitude of other problems can arise if your doctors are not using the codes your case is app

In 2003 OWCP migrated from maintaining paper files to an electronic imaged system. When there is no activity for an extended period, paper files are shipped off to the federal record center. The federal record center destroys files after 15 years. If you have an older claim that was a paper file that has been "retired" to the federal record center, you are at risk of your paper file being destroyed. This means if you had an old knee injury, and now need a knee replacement, yo

When you are receiving federal workers compensation benefits you are a second class citizen. Your actions are scrutinized and interpreted against you. It is always important that your activities are consistent with your physician’s restrictions. If you can’t push a mower around at work, you better not show up on a video pushing one around at home. With the explosion of social media has come a new world of risk for injured workers. Comments, pictures, friends, all of this info

I frequently hear from injured workers that they have difficulty requesting copies of their records, either being told they are not allowed to have a copy or being charged exorbitant fees. The following article lays out some very good tips and instructions on how to request a copy of your records, and how to do so in ways that minimize the cost. Keep in mind that for many medical providers, sending out copies of your records has been turned into another profit center. By unde

In order for a medical provider to bill OWCP for medical care, the provider needs to register through OWCP's contractor to get a provider number. I have found that sometimes the process of registering for a provider number or straightening out problems with a provider number can become an obstacle to a physician's office being able to accept and treat federal workers compensation claimants. If your physician's office is having problems registering for their provider number or

This is a topic I have previously posted, but its important and bears repeating. If you are receiving a check from OWCP and are also entitled to Social Security Disability payments from SSA, you may be able to recover legal fees and other unreimbursed expenses through your Social Security disability claim. If SSA is reducing your check, they are taking an "offset" because you are receiving a check from OWCP, you can recover your unreimbursed expenses from SSA. This also appli

For any time that you are claiming workers compensation pay, you must be very careful about engaging in ANY type of other "employment" like activity. In a FECA claim, OWCP will take a very broad view of your activities and interpret anything that you are doing for money, or that someone normally would be paid to do, as working. You are claiming workers compensation pay because you cannot do your regular job, so if you also work or do anything work like, there can be severe cr

An emotional injury caused by the day-to-day duties of one's job is a valid basis for a federal employee's workers compensation claim. Here is a link for Department of State employees: https://www.state.gov/m/med/dsmp/c44957.htm

OWCP's 2019 payment schedule for FECA claimants receiving periodic wage loss and schedule award payments is now accessible on the web. It can become confusing to understand what date the next payment is due from OWCP as they issue payments on a 28 day cycle, 13 times a year. Here is a link to the 2019 payment schedule: https://www.dol.gov/owcp/dfec/regs/compliance/Periodic-Roll-Payment-Schedule.htm

I have been fielding a lot of calls this morning from FECA claimants who should have received their direct deposit periodic roll payment this morning. I am advised by various persons at OWCP that there was a problem with the transfer of payment data from OWCP to Treasury this week and payments are delayed. Many claimants should expect to have their direct deposit tomorrow, but apparently some smaller banking institutions may not post receipt of the payment until Monday mornin

It's that time of year, if you need to make a change to your health benefit enrollment, or just want to explore your options, remember that you need to do this over the web since OWCP no longer mails out brochures. A good place to start is here: https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/open-season Note that if your employing agency transferred your health insurance enrollment responsibility to OWCP,  you must make sure your completed SF2809 is received by the OWCP District Of