Multiple Impairments

When applying for disability benefits, Social Security must determine if the combined effect of all your impairments renders you disabled, regardless of whether any impairment individually would.  We filed an application last September for a 60 year old project manager from Medford that illustrates this point.

The claimant’s case was initially denied, even though we submitted strong evidence that her cervical spine impairment made desk work near impossible.  However, shortly after we submitted evidence demonstrating that claimant’s hip problems limited her ability to stand and walk, which is required by work that is not sedentary, disability benefits were approved.

Claimants frequently neglect to provide information about medical problems because it is not the main issue.  However, any impairment that results in any limitation can be important.

Retaining a disability attorney should be a top priority if you are planning on applying for Social Security Disability benefits.  Applying for SSD requires strategy and expert knowledge of what is needed to be approved.   It is not a simple process, and can be very stressful, especially when you are suffering from medical problems.   We can take that burden off of your shoulders.  You can call our office for a free phone consultation.  We have offices located in Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island.

Growing Dire Need

The Social Security Administration's ("SSA") local offices will be reopening their doors to the public beginning in April.   While this is good news, the SSA expects that the local office will be inundated with people who have not been able to get any help since March 2020, when the offices shut down to the public.  The local offices also expect to have even longer wait times compared to their usual long wait time, to speak to a representative. To add insult to injury, the SSA has been experiencing daily issues with their phones while they update their phone system.

The backlog in disability claims has grown exponentially since the offices shut down.  The backlog is mainly at the State agencies, who review and make the initial decisions on disability claims.  This backlog has left claimants, who have been unable to work and have no income, waiting for months, sometimes years, for a decision.  Many of them are losing their homes, losing their health insurance, and in some cases, passing away before a decision is even made on their claim.

It is important to note that spouses and children of deceased workers, who had enough work credits before they passed away to be entitled to benefits, may be eligible to collect Survivor and/or Widow benefits under their loved one's Social Security Number.

The National 800 number for the SSA is (800) 772-1213.  You can also call your local office, whose representatives are usually more knowledgeable than the reps that answer the national number.  You can find your local office's phone number using the Social Security Office Locator tool on their website, which  asks for your zip code to determine which local office would handle your questions.

Treating CE

The Social Security Administration (“SSA”) usually asks a claimant to have a consultative examination (“CE”) when applying for Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits.  According to the SSA regulations, a claimant’s medical source is the preferred source to do the CE.

We represent a 54 year old production coordinator and warehouseman with knee impairments, whose SSD application was approved today.  Because of his knee problems, the only possible category of work the claimant could perform would be sedentary work. If the claimant were limited to sedentary work, then under the Grid rules, the claimant still would have to be found disabled if he lacked transferable skills.

The SSA asked the claimant to attend a CE, which was performed by the claimant’s orthopedist.  The orthopedist completed SSA’s form DDD-3883, and the information provided would preclude even sedentary work, which meant that it was not even necessary to determine if the claimant had transferable skills.  The SSD application was approved shortly after the CE report was submitted.

 

Long Covid Financial Duress

It's been 2 years since COVID took over our lives.  If you were lucky, you didn't get COVID, or at least you recovered from it fairly quickly without any lingering effects.  But millions of people in this country have long COVID, a condition which can cause any number of lingering symptoms.

COVID does not discriminate against age, race, economic or political status, or gender.  COVID affects previously healthy individuals as well as people with underlying health conditions.  Some people with severe symptoms can barely get out of bed each day, let alone work a full-time job.

The financial duress caused by long COVID is unimaginable.  So many of these people were unable to return to their job, and cannot work at all.  Their only option, if they are fortunate enough to be eligible, is to apply for Social Security Disability benefits, Long Term Disability Insurance benefits through their job, or through a private disability policy.  Yet , despite all the medical data available from reliable sources, people afflicted with long COVID are being denied disability benefits, even with their doctors' support.

Hard working people just like you and me are being denied benefits.  Shouldn't they be compensated when they are struck down by an illness that renders them unable to work?  The insurance companies and the Social Security Administration need to wake up, and help these people instead of denying them.  Who knows, maybe in a few years they will recover so they can return to work.  But right now, as much as they want to and need to, they cannot.

Instead of receiving the benefits to help them through their medical condition, people with Long COVID are losing their health insurance, their homes, and their dignity.  These people need financial assistance now.  The insurance companies and the SSA need to follow the science, and follow what the medical experts are saying.  They cannot continue to bury their heads in the sand.

By Susan Golden

Aid for Long COVID?

Help for people with long term COVID might be coming from a surprising place.  Senator Tim Kaine, who suffers from mild long COVID symptoms, has introduced a bill into the Senate that could potentially help people who suffer from long term COVID receive help.  THe bill is entitled the Comprehensive Access to Resources and Education (CARE) for Long COVID Act.  According to this article, one review estimates that more than half of COVID survivors experience lingering symptoms, including neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory, and mental health symptoms, months after their initial infection.

 

Federal Court Remand

We appealed the decision of an administrative law judge (“ALJ”) that denied Social Security Disability (“SSD”) benefits to a 35 year old teacher from Brooklyn with mental impairments.  The ALJ accepted the opinions of consultative psychologists after a single examination over my client's long time treating psychiatrists.

We argued that the ALJ erred in elevating the consultative psychologists’ opinions over the treating psychiatrists, and by interpreting the mental health records herself.  District Court Judge Chen agreed, and reversed the ALJ’s decision.

Judge Chen also ruled that the ALJ erred when rejecting the treating doctors opinions because they purportedly were inconsistent with their treatment notes.  Judge Chen explained that the ALJ should have requested more information from the doctors to reconcile any alleged inconsistency.

Our client originally filed for SSD on her own, with the help of her father, in 2016.  After her initial denial, her father sought us out and retained us to represent his daughter for SSD benefits.  He assisted in providing us with supportive evidence, and even testified on his daughter's behalf at her hearing.  But since the ALJ elevated her own opinion over the opinions of our client's treating doctors, and erroneously denied our client's SSD claim, we filed suit in Federal Court.  Our client would never have gotten this far had she not retained us, and with Judge Chen's acknowledgement of the ALJ's errors, we look forward to a new hearing and a new decision.

If you have already filed on your own for SSD benefits, you can still call our office for a free phone consultation in order for us to assess your disability claim and potentially represent you going forward with your SSD case.  We have offices located on Long Island in both Nassau and Suffolk counties.