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Every two weeks I highlight articles of note for Social Security disability claimants and their representatives:

 

NOSSCR (the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives) sent out a good reminder to its members recently by email: SSA will divide the authorized fee among all appointed representatives in the same firm.

Here is an excerpt of that reminder:

When a claimant appoints more than one concurrent representative in the same firm and the fee agreement is approved, SSA’s stated policy has long been to divide the authorized fee by the number of appointed representatives and to send a check of equal amount to each appointed representative who has not waived a fee, regardless of who has worked on the case. If one representative waives the fee, that portion of the fee will be sent to the claimant. See POMS GN 03940.009 and GN 03920.017. In the past, SSA rarely followed this procedure. For reasons unknown to us, SSA is now regularly following this rule. 

If all appointed representatives are members of the same firm, and all sign the same fee agreement, the fee agreement will be approved. See HALLEX I-1-2-12. None of the representatives have to withdraw and no one should waive the fee, or their fractional share will be released to the claimant. 

Because each portion of the fee is payable to the individual representative, be sure that each representative has submitted a 1699 form, and that the firm has submitted the 1694 form, and that a 1695 and 1696 form is submitted for each claim.

I have also noticed this change. When my colleague, Collette Cushing, attends a disability hearing, the fee is now divided between us, and we receive two checks. It was not that way until a few months ago.

Judging by the incoming phone calls, emails and requests for a case review, the New Hampshire DDS, which makes the decisions on initial applications for Social Security disability benefits and SSI, just denied a bunch of claims. For some reason, they seem to send out denial letters in batches.

If you received a denial notice from Social Security, be sure to appeal your denial right away. Although you have 60 days to appeal, there is no reason to wait. 

Just recently, one of our clients was granted at hearing on the basis of debilitating colitis. Social Security had previously denied her claim after finding her capable of performing light work with ready access to a bathroom. After speaking with her and reading her medical records, it was clear that Social Security had not fully considered the nature of her illness or the severity of her symptoms.

What is colitis? 

Colitis refers to inflammation of the colon and causes several symptoms including: chronic diarrhea; abdominal pain; cramping; bloating; and dehydration. Associated symptoms of dehydration include: lightheadedness; weakness; and fatigue. 

What medical documentation is needed to establish the diagnosis and prove disability? 

At step 2 of the sequential evaluation, the judge must find that you have a severe impairment or combination of impairments that have or are expected to last at least 12 continuous months or be expected to result in death. 

There are many causes for inflammation and some are highly treatable and non-severe according to Social Security standards. Therefore, it is very important to talk with your doctor, and have him or her document your symptoms so that the proper tests to exclude other conditions with similar symptoms (i.e. diverticulitis, irritable bowel syndrome) can be performed and a proper treatment plan started.

Continue Reading Colitis and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

I am in a stretch of time where my local hearing offices (Portland, Maine and Manchester, New Hampshire) have scheduled only a very few hearings for my clients. Naturally, the summer season in Maine is a perfect time to have things slow down a little. Everyone can get caught up on vacation while the weather is beautiful. We also have a U.S District Court brief due soon. But this office has two lawyers, a paralegal and a legal assistant. What to do when the hearing schedule is slow?

Here is the strategy I have devised:

  • We are getting a head start on the claims that we know will be scheduled in the Fall.
  • We are writing on the record requests for every claim that we can identify as appropriate. Not only will these requests get some of these claims granted, but the claims that are not granted are basically all set for hearing.
  • We are redoubling our efforts to communicate frequently with our clients. This is a process we already started, and we know that the earlier we delve deep into a claim, the better.
  • I have taken the opportunity to focus on outreach. It is not happenstance that our ebook, 10 steps to prepare for your Social Security disability hearing, was released this week.

What else? What would you do? Please feel free to leave a comment.

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Download free ebook:

Ten steps to prepare for your Social Security disability hearing

 

The NOSSCR website has a new feature that is very useful. The site has a set of Google "search boxes," each focused only on the SSA website, or the Social Security Act, or the Regulations, or the Rulings, or the HALLEX, or the POMS, or Google Scholar. Take a look.

This is a very handy tool, particularly for the searching the HALLEX or POMS, both of which have terrible indexes that make finding a particular provision difficult. With search, it is easy. Go ahead and type "good cause" in the POMS search box. You will find exactly what you need.

75% of the visits to this site are from new visitors. For both new and returning visitors to the blog, here are a few tips to find what you are looking for and to share that informations with others.

Use the sidebar

A characteristic of the blog format is that the most recent posts (not necessarily the most important posts) appear at the top of the site. To counterbalance this, I created the Important Topics for Claimants list on the sidebar, which has links to permanent pages that address topics that are central to many claims. Take a look at the Important Topics to see if there is a webpage dedicated to an issue important to your claim. The sidebar also has a Resources of Note section that links directly to useful pages on the SSA website. For disability lawyers, the sidebar has links to Ten Tips for Writing Hearing Briefs and a sample brief. Check out the Twitter Updates on the sidebar for the latest information.

Use the search box

If you do not see what you are looking for, try the search box at the top of the sidebar. With over 450 posts on this site, there is a strong likelihood that I have written on a Social Security disability topic important to your claim.

Share the post with others

When you finish reading a helpful post, click one of the buttons displayed in the footer, to share it with your network on facebook, twitter, or other social site. Clicking on the Google +1 button will help others find the post you just reviewed.

Subscribe to the blog

You can enter your email in the box on the sidebar to receive future posts by email. There is also a button on the sidebar to subscribe to this blog, and receive posts by RSS reader.

I hope these tips help you to find the information you are seeking. Once you do, please share it with others.

 

I have written an ebook, entitled 10 Steps to Prepare for Your Social Security Disability Hearing.

I have been sharing this book with my clients, and have now added it to my law firm website. It is available to anyone as a free PDF download. There is no form to fill out; no name or email address is required to download the book. This link will take you to the page on my website to download 10 Steps to Prepare for Your Social Security Disability Hearing. 

My hope is that those who are waiting for their Social Security disability hearings will find helpful information in the book, and that they will learn how to make their claims stronger.

Here are the ten steps:

  1. Appeal within 60 days
  2. Prepare for the wait for a hearing
  3. Determine why your claim was denied
  4. Learn how Social Security evaluates disability claims
  5. Think about your functional limitations in a specific way
  6. Know your work history for the past 15 years
  7. Continue with your regular medical treatment
  8. Obtain a medical source statement
  9. Consider a statement from a spouse, parent, sibling or friend
  10. Get legal help

Again, you can download 10 Steps to Prepare for Your Social Security Disability Hearing for free, without providing any information about yourself. I hope the book fulfills its purpose, and you are empowered to make your claim stronger for your hearing. 

Every other Friday, I publish links to notable posts from the Social Security disability blogs. I am widening the net a bit, and will now link not just to posts, but also to newspaper articles and other sites of interest to Social Security disability claimants and representatives. It is a timely decision, because with the July 4th holiday it has been a bit slow in the notable blog posts department.  

Photo: Bridget testing her balance

 

There is an excellent discussion of job traits versus transferable skills in Kramer v. Astrue, No. 1:10-cv-207-JAW (D. Me. March 25, 2011).

Here is the relevant excerpt (I have removed citations to the administrative record):

The administrative law judge found that the plaintiff’s past jobs as a firefighter and an emergency services dispatcher required the following skills: “[p]erform a variety of duties, deal with people, perform effectively under stress, and make judgments and decisions.” These were identified by the vocational expert in his testimony as the transferable skills he would consider in responding to the administrative law judge’s hypothetical questions. The plaintiff contends that these are not job skills in the world of Social Security, but rather traits, the existence of which has no effect  on the question of whether an applicant has transferable work skills.

In order to find that a claimant who cannot return to his past relevant work can perform other work of a skilled or, as in this case, semi-skilled nature, an administrative law judge must find that the claimant has skills developed in his past work that can be transferred to the specific other work identified as available for him.  20 C.F.R. § 404.1568(d); Social Security Ruling 83-10, reprinted in  West’s Social Security Reporting Service  Rulings 1983-1991, at 26;  see also Fines v. Apfel, 149 F.3d 893, 895 (8th Cir. 1998).  In the instant case, the vocational expert so testified, and the administrative law judge relied on his testimony.  The plaintiff’s challenge here, then, is not to the administrative law judge’s  findings, but rather to the vocational expert’s testimony.  

…               

The listed “skills” are: performing a variety of duties, dealing with people, performing effectively under stress, and making judgments and decisions. As the court noted in Ellington v. Secretary of Health & Human Servs., 738 F.2d 159, 161 (6th Cir. 1984), skills identified as “independence of judgment” and “responsibility for work product” “are too vague to constitute particular skills which are transferable.”   Such “skills” are not distinguishable “from those of a lawyer, a secretary or a nuclear physicist.”  Id.  In Draegert v. Barnhart, 311 F.3d 468 (2d Cir. 2002), the court, holding that “there is an inherent difference between aptitudes and skills” in Social Security parlance, id. at 474, found that the following abilities were not transferable skills:  to learn and apply rules and procedures, to use reason and judgment in dealing with all kinds of people, to think clearly and react quickly in an emergency, to keep physically fit, to make conclusions based on facts and one’s personal judgment, and to change easily and frequently from one activity to another.  Id. at 476-77.  Remand was ordered in both of these cases. 

For the case at hand, the identified “skills” do not differ significantly from those rejected in Ellington and Draegert, and I, therefore, reject them as a basis for the vocational expert’s identification of three semi-skilled jobs that the plaintiff could perform, given the RFC assigned by the administrative law judge. 

Judge Rich made the correct analysis. Bear this case in mind next time a vocational expert takes a liberty with the applicant's transferable skills. Don't let the VE testify about traits instead of transferable skills. Object to that testimony, and say that those traits are not "transferable skills," as that terms is defined by the Social Security Administration.