INTRODUCTION
Your ability to work determines not only your financial present but your financial future. If you are healthy, physically and mentally able, you may have the luxury of complaining about the workweek. However, if you are suddenly sick, injured and otherwise unable to work you may feel considerable distress and worry. Social security disability is intended to help you and your family in the event that you become sick or injured and as a result are unable to work. However, for far too many Oklahoma working people, social security disability claims are problematic and a source of considerable frustration. In fact this frustration and worry over your medical condition and financial insecurity can lead to a further decay in your ability to work, only complicating the problem.
FILING YOUR CLAIM
If you have suffered a devastating injury or chronic illness and are rendered unable to work, it is imperative that you file a claim right away. Failure to do so could result in you losing valuable benefits and could even result in your not being able to draw any benefits whatsoever. Many are hesitant to file a claim by their sheer stubbornness or unwillingness to accept that they are truly disabled. Others are discouraged from filing or pursuing a claim by a perception by them, their doctors, friends or even family members, as well as staff members at the social security administration that their medical condition will improve to the point they will become able to return to the workforce in the future. Finally, some are reluctant to file based upon a real or even perceived capability to perform some form of work on a sporadic, menial, or part-time basis or even their ability to work for a friend or family member under special accommodated conditions. To be clear, your ability to work through your medical problems and perform some form of part-time, occasional, sporadic or “sheltered” work out of the kindness of a friend or family member will not automatically disqualify you for benefits. Certainly you do not need to be bed-ridden to win your case. Contact our office immediately for a free consultation and case analysis to determine your particular circumstances and the advisability of your filing for benefits at this time.
THE APPEALS PROCESS
Many claims get rejected due to incomplete, incorrect or even improperly filed paperwork. Certain deadlines are critical and your failure to meet these with proper filings can be terminal to your case. Unfortunately this could result in your having to start the entire process over and even worse, could result in your losing your right to refile your claim altogether. Less critical mistakes and misfilings, although not terminal to your case, could undoubtedly result in significant delays in your receiving a timely decision on your case, all during a time when you and your family’s financial situation is in peril. Certainly creating your own delays in a bureaucratic system already notorious for its own inherent delays should be avoided at all cost. Regrettably, due to the financial hardship and even family strife caused by their medical problems, many have a hard time even maintaining a stable residence to which social security can send important notices regarding their claim, which further jeopardizes their ability to persevere and win their case. Many disabled workers get discouraged and simply give up after receiving repeated notices from social security minimizing their medical problems and constantly reminding them that they are able to work, resulting in many good claims being unpaid. Finally, many people suffer from severe mental, emotional and physical problems, or are under treatment and medication for such conditions, which truly interfere with their ability to fully understand, persevere and compete in the complicated process they must follow precisely to ultimately win their case. As a result many deserving claims are rejected early on in the process because of procedural missteps made in the application or appeal process—resulting in these claims never receiving due consideration on their merits or the claimant receiving his or her so-called day in court. The process can be daunting. Our office can assist you in this bureaucratic maze known as the social security disability appeals process. Contact us today for a free consultation and case analysis.
PROVING THAT YOU ARE UNABLE TO WORK
Social security disability claims are often approved or rejected based on medical evidence alone. The social security administration has a marginal duty, if at all, to even go forward and obtain medical evidence needed for a fair evaluation of your case. In fact, social security regulations clearly mandate that, at a minimum, a disability applicant must come forth with sufficient medical evidence to prove that he or she has a ‘severe’ physical or mental medical impairment and further that this condition prevents him or her from performing his or her past work. Unfortunately, social security disability applicants make up an unfair and disproportionate share of the uninsured people in this country, owing to their inability to work or to work only on a part-time basis, as most people get their health care coverage through their long-term, full-time work activity. Even if you are fortunate enough to have access to health care benefits, just getting to your doctor and obtaining necessary prescriptions and funding other incidental medical services not covered by your health insurance coverage, such as co-pays, can present an insurmountable financial burden not known to most people. To further complicate matters, most medical evidence generated in the normal course of your treatment will not be written in a manner needed to win your case. For example, statements from your doctor that your are ‘disabled’ or ‘unable to work’, although well intended, are not given any particular weight by the social security administration, and in fact, can give a disability claimant a false sense of security that such a statement by itself will result in a favorable award being rendered on his or her case. This law firm is firmly committed to not only getting you to the medical doctors and other medical sources needed to prove your case, but to get your medical evidence in a format that results in one conclusion in your case—that you are disabled and entitled to your benefits.
YOUR DISABILITY HEARING
Most cases are won at or following a hearing before a social security judge. Your time before the judge is limited and should be used wisely. Your medical problems and associated work-related limitations must be fully developed within the confines of this short hearing. According to social security regulations the judge at your hearing will have a very marginal duty to develop your testimony and elicit other evidence concerning your ability to perform necessary work-related activities. Any unnecessary statements made by you as well as other witnesses will be disregarded at best, or unfortunately could even hurt or lose your case. Any evidence concerning past or present drug or alcohol use, to include misuse of prescription medication, must be delicately handled. Your medical evidence must be fully developed and meticulously filed and, to further complicate matters, virtually all disability claim files at the hearing level are electronic, resulting in your hearing being conducted ‘paperless’. Your judge will most probably present a vocational or job expert who will testify at your hearing with certain limitations ascribed to you by doctors who you saw only once at the request of social security, or he or she could even present this expert with work-related limitations given to you by doctors and other non-medical staff employed by social security who interestingly have never even examined you and only reviewed limited medical records and other information given to them by social security early on in your case. In many cases your judge will also bring a medical doctor to your hearing to testify who will need to be cross-examined if necessary. Make no mistake about it; however, properly developed and presented, medical evidence and opinions from your own treating doctors and other sources will trump the opinions of doctors retained by social security every time. We have successfully handled thousands of social security cases at the hearing level over the last 20 years and truly have the knowledge and the technology to fully prepare you and your electronic case file for court.
CONCLUSION
You need to win this case. There may not be the opportunity for ‘do-overs’. This firm has successfully handled thousands of social security cases over the past 20 years. That is the experience. However, our approach is also designed to provide you with the one-on-one interaction you and your case deserve. Contact us today for a free in-depth analysis of your claim.