DDS Disrespect

After we receive a favorable decision for a client, our representation ends.  But many of our clients are subject to reviews by the  Social Security Administration ("SSA").  The timeframe of the review varies for each individual client, dependent on an ALJ's recommendation upon approving a claim.  The time frame for the review can be anywhere from 12 months to 3 years from the decision.  We always advise our clients to continue treatment with their doctors, because if they don't, then the SSA will interpret that to mean they have improved and are no longer disabled.

We periodically receive phone calls from former clients, advising us that they are being reviewed.  Even though we no longer represent them, we do try to help them through the process.

We received a phone call from a former client, who was under review.  He suffers from severe anxiety and agoraphobia.  He told us that he had received a letter notifying him that he needed to attend a Consultative Exam.  We recommended that he call his doctors and ask them if they had received a request from the State agency for updated records, and if they had, to make sure they sent the requested records back to the State agency as soon as possible.  When he spoke to his doctors, they had not received a request from the State agency for their records.  We told our client to call the analyst at the State agency, who was handling his case, and ask her why she was sending him for a CE when she hadn't even requested records from his doctors.  His doctors were more than happy to cooperate.

Our client called us to let us know that he had spoken to the analyst.  He told us that the analyst was extremely rude to him, and made him feel like he had done something wrong.  All this did was make someone with extreme anxiety even more anxious.  This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we've been told by a client that they've been treated like this by an employee of the SSA.

We advised our client to call the analyst's supervisor to report this analyst.  No one deserves to be treated with such disrespect.  It's one thing when it's directed at us, we are used to it, but it is completely unacceptable for a State agency analyst, or any SSA employee, to speak to a claimant in such a manner.

Our client reached the supervisor who brushed off his complaint about the analyst's behavior towards him, but the supervisor did  advise him that they had received the records from his doctors and he did not have to attend the CE.  If the analyst had done her job properly from the beginning, our client would not have been thrown into a state of severe anxiety.

If you find yourself in a situation such as this, don't be afraid to contact a supervisor and report the behavior of the analyst or the SSA employee who has treated you this way.  Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself.  You have been approved for disability.  If you are still disabled and have not improved since you were approved for SSD, then your doctors' records will support that.