The Criteria for Medical Retirement

Medical retirement is when someone must retire from their job for medical reasons. This can occur due to degenerative illnesses like Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease or arthritis. Medical retirement also can result from on-the-job injuries.

Private Pensions

• If someone is given disability status by their doctor, they can apply for disability benefits from their pension plan. Pension plans can require multiple medical reviews by their own doctors before classifying someone as disabled to collect medical retirement benefits. Individuals can also pull money out of their 401k and Individual Retirement Accounts before age 59 1/2 if determined by several doctors to be medically disabled.

Social Security Disability

• Individuals can apply for Social Security Disability regardless of age. However, the disability must be deemed permanent and must prevent the individual from working at all. The United States government requires that someone has worked prior to disablement in order to collect Social Security Disability.

Military and Public Safety Veterans

• Police qualify for medical retirement if they no longer meet the physical requirements for the job. Police image by Zeno from Fotolia.com

  Permanent medical retirement is granted to soldiers who can no longer work as a result of wartime injuries. The disability must be permanent and result in at least 30 percent impairment to receive permanent medical retirement from the military. Police officers and firefighters are eligible for medical retirement if they are unable to perform their job as the result of an on-the-job injury.