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Bill easing regs for disability applicants pass Senate
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Posted on Apr 28 2008
The Senate has passed legislation to ease certification requirements for disability retirement applicants.
House Bill 16-81 returns to the House of Representatives for approval of amendments made by the Senate.
Currently, a potential disability retiree must be evaluated by two physicians and a vocational rehabilitation counselor, and get certification that he or she is totally and permanently disabled due to physical or mental incapacitation.
The bill, as approved by the Senate, proposes to remove the certification requirement from a vocational rehabilitation counselor. It also eliminates language in the original bill that one of the two physicians be a specialist in the filed of disability being certified.
The Senate says the specialist requirement might unduly restrict the ability of the Retirement Fund board of trustees to obtain the needed certifications.
The upper chamber adds that the two-physician certification requirement is “sufficient to protect against abuses and fraudulent cases of disability.”
Rep. Joseph Reyes, a former chairman of the NMI Retirement Fund, sponsored the bill due to findings that the current requirements are too difficult to satisfy and have failed to achieve the intended purpose.
According to Reyes, OVR counselors lack medical and psychiatric expertise or credentials to issue such certification. This situation has created a hardship for OVR, for the retirees, and for the Retirement Fund.
“This legal requirement of OVR counselors places the office in the untenable situation of either requiring counselors to make judgments that are beyond the scope of their training, or not complying with the law. Both courses of action could be detrimental to retirees and or to the Retirement Fund,” Reyes states in the original bill.
