QUESTION: What can I do to best assure that OPM takes my claim seriously?

ANSWER: Apart from the formal steps necessary to get disability retirement, there is one particularly effective informal step that I take in some cases. I flood OPM with evidence of disability by introducing letters and affidavits from family and friends on the home front, and co-workers and colleagues on the work front, all testifying to my client's credibility and disability. I never worry that the formal process has no place for such letters and affidavits. I go on the assumption that it's hard to ignore someone with a horde of witnesses out there just itching to testify.