still working?

sandwichone123

Hi all,

I am interested in hearing about the experience of having your spouse/partner diagnosed while they were still working. I am trying to support my spouse through this, but he's not able to make very good decisions and I'm not really comfortable trying to deal with his job.

Diane

Crushed

DW was a physician and held a very senior staff position in the Federal government. At the same time a review of her brilliant work had resulted in a large pay raise.  She was 58 when she got the MCI diagnosis.  She had a vast quantity of sick and annual leave since as a critical employee she had never been able to use it.  In the new position she was also working from home largely via email.  So she was able to put in about one more year of  actual work, interspersed with sick and annual leave when she was not up to it.  After two years she got the Alzheimer's diagnosis and filed for SS disability.  We had negotiated a period of time for her to put her papers in order for the Archives.  The day the papers went to the archives she went on terminal sick leave  SSDI was approved just after since she was unable to work.  When her sick leave ran out she was retired by the feds on diswability.  I had kept her on the payroll for 33 months at her enhanced salary which increased her FERS pension. 

I then had to sue OPM (office of personnel Management) to get her pension redetermined at age 62.  That is a separate story.  along the way I had to convince the medical authorities to renew her medical license despite the disability. She assured them that she had NO patient contact whatever in any way and they issued the license (which was required for her job).      

Keeping her on the job was my full time job. I took her to work every day and waited the day in a coffee shop with my laptop.   I filed all of her leave applications. It's real work.  I had a good law firm handle the disability retirement application but did the OPM appeal on my own.    

French

Hi Diane, 

Initially my partner was on sick leave for a burn out. I was the one who pushed him to be put on sick leave by the doctor because I heard him complaining every night, especially when he was in front of his computer. He told me that his boss was very oppressive. The latter was a new leader. In France, my partner was in charge of sales forecasts and logistics for a large American group, for the whole of Europe. He also managed a team with people all over Europe. He was used to pressure.

It took me 6 months to understand that it wasn't a burn out and 9 months before I was heard from the doctors, more than 1 year to have a diagnosis. All this time, I preferred not to say anything to his company because I was afraid that he would be fired, even though I knew that if I thought it was a burn out they would not fire him. I would have liked to discuss with his team to understand what was happening but I was thinking that it can be used against him so I didn’t. And I didn’t know them.

When I started to get the first elements of diagnosis, I contacted the occupational physician at his company (I don't know if you have that as well). He started asking questions to the people my partner was managing and they admitted that things had been going badly for a long time but that they were correcting his mistakes. They all thought he was exhausted from work and that was the reason for the mistakes... and they liked him so they wanted to help him.

They felt very guilty when they found out it was Alzheimer's because they thought maybe they could have done something about it. We all know that's not true.

In the end, once the incapacity to work was recognized by the social security, he was dismissed in good conditions and with the benefit of the provident agreement. If he had continued to work and continued to make mistakes, he could have been dismissed for fault and would no longer have this insurance that guarantees his salary at 100% until retirement age (in 11 years!!!).

It probably depends a lot on the situation, but in our case, once the diagnosis was made, it was better to discuss with the employer to find the best solution. They could have proposed an adapted new position, but they thought he wouldn’t have any benefit in that. I cost them more of 1 year of salary to dismiss him, but now it's the insurance that pays.

I think it was a very good agreement and I was very proud of having obtained it. I have always being working for the government so that I had no idea of how to discuss this kind of thing with an international firm. 

I think that generally it’s better to explain and prevent issues, but you always can be confronted to heartless people... it’s the risk

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Iris L.

Keeping in mind all of the above, discuss with your advisors taking short term sick leave pending completion of medical and neurological evaluation and possible trial of therapies.  This may require only a doctor's signature.  If more time is needed, he can transition to long term disability, which requires more documentation, and sometimes legal action.  

Iris L.

Crushed

I fully agree that you need legal help in this process.  I had good law firms handle everything .

But blaming Justice Ginsburg for a unanimous supreme court ruling  is simply partisan nonsense.   They were  interpreting a federal statute Blame Congress
(Justices write opinions, the Court makes a Ruling. In this case the Ruling was unanimous and Justice Ginsburg wrote for the entire Unanimous Court)

Fortunately the OBAMA administration issued regulations effectively overturning the NORD case   
29 CFR § 2560.503-1 - Claims procedure.

 

Battlebuddy

  My husband was working at a big name investment firm doing IT. At 53 he seemed burnt out , depressed and stressed out. Managing too much ,he seemed to be struggling. I Never saw Alzheimers coming, but my husband did. He had been going to various doctors with help with “ focus”. He told me about an MRI that the neurologist had done that “ found something”. 

  But by the time I understood the MRI , he had come to me and admitted he had missed two meetings at work.  He had a new boss ,  who wanted two more systems built but my husband  couldn’t remember how to do it. That day I Called his doctor for a lunchtime appointment. She sent him to FMLA short term disability. I needed to get him out of work because he could have been fired. He never went back .

    The short term disability became long term term ( not easily, I had to threaten the “ hired hacks” with a lawsuit,) but was able to preserve his benefits because his employer decided to keep him on as a “ inactive “employee . So we are still on his corporate health Insurance. We have Social Security Disability also. So financially we are doing well. 

  It is the part of the Alz journey I am most proud of - that I was able to navigate all that. I’m not a corporate person and so the learning curve was huge. I was also most thankful for the doctor who’s grandma had dementia and she saw the signs. She just said “ would you like me to pull him now? How about he doesn’t go back to work until we figure this all out?”

   

French

Battlebuddy, We seem to have manage the same situation. The main différence is that my partner never recognized he was completely lost and couldn’t answer his new manager demands. Once he showed me an email in which his manager was firmly asking to « do that, only that and quickly « . At this moment I couldn’t understand that it wasn’t an undeserved  pressure but only that he was certainly receiving A job that was not up to the task. 

The sick leave was the best answer to protect him before finding a long term solution.

Crushed

French wrote:

In the end, once the incapacity to work was recognized by the social security, he was dismissed in good conditions and with the benefit of the provident agreement. If he had continued to work and continued to make mistakes, he could have been dismissed for fault and would no longer have this insurance that guarantees his salary at 100% until retirement age (in 11 years!!!).

I would note that in the USA except for very low income employees Disability payments are almost  a much smaller fraction of salary , and are designed  to emulate retirement benefits, not salary. 

My wife was a career physician in FERS and the total of her Disability pension and social security disability  after a 30 year career was 50% of her final salary

French

Yes crushed, it’s something similar here.  The social security pension is only 1/3 of the salary he had because it is capped. It’s 50% but capped. But his firm subscribed an insurance so that in case of disability, his salary is maintained till the retirement age. This is a real chance because with only the social security pension, we would have a huge income decrease. With these two pension, I am sure he will have enough whatever happens till he will be 62. After, I have calculated he will have half that. I placed his severance pay, so that to maintain his income 8 years more.

I also had to manage the loan insurance.

It is a huge work to manage all this and I have to send documents (every month) and attestations from the doctor (every year). If I don’t, they will stop paying.

This plus the medical follow up, plus the children, plus my work, plus the house management... my week are too short.

Working for the government, I would also have 50% from the government if disabled. Not sure it is capped. This year, I took a provident insurance. I won’t have a partner to help me and I don’t want my children to pay for me.

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Crushed

Victoria2020 wrote:

Crushed wrote:

Fortunately the OBAMA administration issued regulations effectively overturning the NORD case   
29 CFR § 2560.503-1 - Claims procedure.

 
 Oddly, doesn't seem settled in the courts. https://www.debofsky.com/articles/1st-circ-erisa-benefit-ruling-misapplies-review-standard/.

I read the whole decision

  https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/19-1879/19-1879-2020-09-09.html

It does not deal with the issue you raised. Nord said there were no standards.  the Rules created standards and Doe said the Erisa decision makers  complied with the standards.