ANSWER: Yes. The law allows you to collect your full disability retirement annuity so long as you are not "restored to earning capacity." You are considered "restored to earning capacity" if in any calendar year your earnings from wages, self-employment, or both (but not passive investments) reaches or exceeds 80% of the current rate of basic pay of the position you occupied immediately before retirement. The rule is very strictly construed and you will be stripped of your annuity even if you exceed the 80% ceiling by even a single penny. If you think that you may fall within the scope of this rule, be very sure to find out precisely how it is applied by OPM. For instance, OPM may include in its definition of income, earnings that IRS may exclude from its definition of income.

If you are "restored to earning capacity," you will lose your entire disability retirement annuity, not just some percentage of it. Loss of your annuity will also mean loss of other benefits, including loss of your group health insurance, which will always be more favorable than the individual conversion policy to which you may thereafter be entitled. Persons over 60 years of age are exempt from this 80% earnings limitation.

ANSWER: Yes. Although you will lose your disability retirement annuity if you are "restored to earning capacity," you may reapply. On reapplication, you will have to demonstrate not only that your earnings have diminished for an entire calendar year below the 80% ceiling, but also that you are still disabled from your old government job (and not some other job) by the same disability (and not some other disability) that disabled you before. This can be very tricky. The best advice: make sure that you keep your earnings under the 80% ceiling.

ANSWER: Yes, they will check up on you, but the experience of most of my clients is that they will not harass you to get you off disability retirement. This policy, by the way, is different from that of the Department of Labor, which has a reputation for unrelentingly harassing employees in an effort to get them off workers' compensation. The disability retirement law requires OPM to check on your medical condition at least once a year and also permits them to check up on you whenever they so desire. The results are uneven and sporadic. Some employees are contacted within a few months of going on disability retirement while others are not contacted for years. Although OPM has the power to send annuitants to government-appointed physicians, it usually requires you to have your own physician answer a series of questions, which may be the same or similar to those previously asked on the "Physician's Statement." As to monitoring for restoration of earning capacity, that is done on an annual basis through a questionnaire, and you may, in addition, be required to provide copies of your tax returns.