In New York, Disability Determination Services (“DDS”), a State agency, initially decides if you get Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits. Experience reveals that most of the people working at DDS are lazy.
We constantly have cases sitting at DDS for months without any review activity. Then, after we submit medical records and reports, DDS asks for the same things again, as if simply churning the file shows they have done something. Because they wait too long to review files, DDS regularly claims that the medical records are stale. If DDS had bothered to review the records in a reasonably prompt manner, then the records would not have become stale.
Many DDS medical consultants (“MCs”) are amongst the laziest DDS employees. We always provide MCs with more than ample medical evidence to find claimants disabled. However, MCs refuse to review the medical records and opinions reports that we submit. Instead, the MCs claim that there is insufficient evidence if a claimant does not attend a consultative examination (“CE”). In other words, the only evidence the MCs care about reviewing is the CE report. We had a case with thousands of pages of medical records and reports detailing claimants’ limitations, yet the MCs still said there was insufficient evidence.
We received an OTR today that illustrates the DDS laziness. We represent a 60 year old medical receptionist from Lindenhurst, who had to stop working after suffering a stroke. The file contained over 500 pages of medical records, including detailed functional limitational form the claimant’s neurologist, yet Robert Dickerson, the DDS MC, denied SSD benefits on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence. We appealed by requesting a hearing, which transferred the case from the State agency to the Social Security Administration (“SSA”). It was so obvious to an attorney from the SSA that our client was disabled, that the case was approved OTR, without any additional medical evidence having been submitted.
The DDS laziness wasted the claimant’s time, and the SSA’s resources as well. It is sad that an agency who is supposed to be helping people actually do the opposite. We want to help you. If you are applying for SSD, you need an experienced, competent attorney. Please contact our office for a free phone consultation. We have offices located on Long Island in both Nassau and Suffolk counties.
