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An article from Indiana Social Security attorney Tom Ebbinghouse appeared in my reader recently. Mr. Ebbinghouse prefers to get involved early in a Social Secuity disability claim. He states:

When I first started representing claimants in 1994, I also would not take a client until they had been turned down at least once. I reasoned that if someone could be approved on their initial application without an attorney, why not let them go ahead on their own and find out if their claim could be approved. They could save an attorney fee and it would not hurt their case if they did lose, so why not wait to see who really needed an attorney to help them?

But then I started to notice something. When people applied by themselves, they were making it harder to win their case by not having an attorney at the beginning to explain to them the rules of Social Security. They were unknowingly lowering the odds for success at that stage and at the appeal stages. They were not realizing that they were making strategic decisions that might ruin their claim before some administrative law judges. They did not have someone to help them figure out what was the relevant evidence that they needed to be sure they presented to Social Security. I figured out that I was wrong-people were hurting their case by not having an attorney at the beginning of their case.

Several years ago I decided that I had to start taking claimants as clients as soon as possible. Claimants needed to be represented before they filed their claim. If I made a claimant wait until they were turned down before I would represent them, their not knowing the rules put them at a disadvantage: bad evidence was created, good evidence was not brought forward, other strategic choices were being made that could not be undone, and good claims were being unnecessarily tainted with misinformation.

Do not wait to hire an attorney. Get competent help before you file so that the job will be done correctly from the beginning.

I completely agree. I have had a similar experience to Mr. Ebbinghouse, and now I strongly prefer to get involved as early as possible with a claim.

 

The latest national statistics for average processing time have been released by the SSA and distributed via the NOSSCR monthly newsletter and the Social Security News blog.

The Portland, Maine ODAR retains its perch as #1 in the country for quickest average processing time of Social Security disability hearing requests. Processing time runs from the day the hearing office receives your hearing request to the day a decision is issued.

You can see the complete statistics at the Social Security News blog.

The SSA has released the 2008 report of SSI recipients by state and county. You can scroll down the list to find your state.

Here is the list of Maine SSI recipients by county, as well as the New Hampshire SSI statistics. While we're at it, here are the SSI recipients by county in Vermont.

Maine and New Hampshire have almost the same population (1.3 million people). But New Hampshire has half the number of SSI recipients as Maine does. Vermont has a similar number of SSI recipients to New Hampshire, but only half of its population (about 621,000 people). So Vermont resembles Maine is terms of SSI recipients as a percentage of the state's population.

So why is the number so different in New Hampshire? I practice in both Maine and New Hampshire, and haven't noticed a difference in the rate at which these claims are granted in the two states.

Hat tip to Charles Hall of Social Security News for recently publishing a link to these statistics.

Fibromyalgia is a medically determinable impairment, and can therefore provide a basis for a Social Security dsability claim.

However, many patients report that their doctors do not take fibromyalgia seriously. This was the topic of a recent fibromyalgia article in the Sacramento Bee, a California newspaper. Here is an excerpt:

Controversy swirls even as new FDA-approved medications have shown promise and recent brain imaging research has shown central nervous system changes in those afflicted. …

It is this array of symptoms not linked to specific cause and effect – as opposed to how rheumatoid arthritis can ravage a patient’s joints – that keeps skeptics in mainstream medicine from validating fibromyalgia as a legitimate disease.

Where, exactly, is this deep muscular aching? What’s the cause of that nebulous numbness and dizziness? Why won’t painkillers help? Where are the lab tests that can prove it exists?

Those are the questions that still dog fibromyalgia patients.

“They make you think you’re a hypochondriac or something,” says Jennifer Filbeck, 36, a former restaurant manager from Fairfield who’s been unable to work since 2006. “Doctors treat you like you’re crazy.”

Not crazy per se, critics of the existence of fibromyalgia claim. Their argument: These people suffer from psychological conditions that manifest themselves in vague and hard-to-define physical maladies.

That article could have been written about patients in Maine and New Hampshire, not just California. It is surprising to me how different treating physicians have widely disparate views regarding fibromyalgia.

Nevertheless, for Social Security disability, what matters is not the cause so much as your functional limitations. If you are unable to work due to your medically determinable impairment, you are disabled. Period. Providing evidence establishing those functional limitations is the crux of a Social Security disability case.

Hat tip to @gachman for bringing the article to my attention.

Reconsideration is an intermediate step in the Social Security disability claim process. If DDS denies your initial claim and you appeal, the claim goes right back to DDS for Reconsideration. In 5 out of 6 claims, DDS just denies the claim again. For these claimants, Reconsideration is an unnecessary detour on the way to a hearing by an administrative law judge.

There are ten "prototype" states, however, that skip the Reconsideration step. In those states, the appeal of a denied claim proceeds directly to a hearing with an Administration Law Judge. The 10 prototype states are: Alabama, Alaska, California (Los Angeles North and West areas), Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York (Brooklyn and Albany areas), and Pennsylvania. Social Security has been "testing" this streamlined disability process since 1999.

Apparently the SSA is reconsidering Reconsideration for those prototype states, and is considering reinstating the Reconsideration step. Commissioner Astrue mentioned this when he took questions outside the meeting hall after he addressed the Spring NOSSCR conference in Washington DC.

The SSA is developing a software system to that would better integrate the DDS systems from the 50 states. Each state's DDS uses differing software to manage its claims. So the SSA wants to build one software system to rule them all. And if all 50 states are operating on the same system, the reasoning goes, then all 50 states should have the same procedures, including Reconsideration. No decision has been made yet. The SSA is looking at the issue.

I practice Social Security disability law in Maine and New Hampshire. Maine has Reconsideration, and New Hampshire does not. So I have looked at Reconsideration from both sides now, and I have to say I do not think that the Reconsideration step adds much to the process. The same mistakes are repeated. The littany of DDS failures, such as the inability to evaluate claims with chronic pain and disregard of Social Security's rules, are just doubled by Reconsideration.

This site is intended to be a resource for those looking for help with Social Security disability and SSI claims. As the site has grown, it has become more difficult to find that particular post on the exact topic your are researching. So I have added a search box to the sidebar. Please give it a try!

Just below the search box, there are several links to Important Topics. These links include subjects like the sequential evaluation process and about attorney fees, that are relevant to every Social Security disability claim. This section also contains a link to this site's disclaimer, as well as how to contact me or ask for a free claim evaluation.

Located farther down on the sidebar, there is a list of categories for previous articles. If there is a particular subject that is important for your claim, just click on that category to view articles on that topic.

If, after all that, you haven't found anything on the topic you were looking for, please feel free to leave a comment on this post, or send me an email with a question.

Lastly, to keep up with the latest articles from this site, you can subscribe to the feed. You can receive updates automatically through your web-based news reader or by email, whichever you prefer.

 

Unemployment insurance and Social Security disability are two separate programs, with different goals. In general, if you are receiving unemployment insurance benefits you are ready willing and able to work, and are not disabled. However, receiving unemployment compensation after your alleged onset date does not preclude a favorable finding for your Social Security disability claim.

The Social Security Administration recognizes that a claimant should not have to choose between unemployment compensation and Social Security disability. There is even a Memorandum from the Chief Judge on the topic.

It makes sense when you think about it. Able to work for unemployment purposes does not necessarily mean able to work full-time. Under Social Security's rules, a claimant is considered disabled if that person is unable to perform sustained work on a regular and coninuing basis (8 hours per day, 5 days per week, or an equivalent schedule – see Social Security Ruling 96-8p). Further, if you are over 50, you may still be able to work at an unskilled sedentary job, but could still be found disabled under Social Security's Medical-Vocational Guidlelines.

Under these circumstances, there is nothing inconsistent about receiving unemployment insurance benefits and applying for Social Security disability.

Nevertheless, some judges just don't like it. And the judge is entitled to consider receipt of unemployment benefits when deciding your disability claim. So it is important (as always) to know your judge. Also, you should have a good explanation ready for the hearing of the circumstances surrounding your receipt of unemployment benefits.

Check out the article by Colorado Springs Social Security lawyer Tomasz Stasiuk for another discussion of this same topic.

Sometimes a prior job is actually more than one job at the same time. You were both a RN and a nurse supervisor. You were both a receptionist and a filing clerk. You were both a carpenter and a construction supervisor. These are called composite jobs.

If your past relevant work included a composite job, it can cause problems with your Social Security disability claim. The SSA must determine, at step 4 of the 5-step sequential evaluation process, whether you have the residual functional capacity to perform your past relevant work. Not only does Social Security consider your ability to do your past work as you performed it, but also as generally performed. And this is where the composite job can cause problems with a claim.

Typically, in the short space available on the work history report, you only give the job title for part of your composite job. Then you describe what you had to do. Social Security may find that you can’t do the job as you describe it, buy can still do that job as generally performed. The problem is that the “generally performed” analysis does not consider the composite nature of the job. The SSA will just use the job title that you gave in your work history report to determine how the job is generally performed in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). If that past job was a composite job, this approach is incorrect under Social Security’s own rules.

Continue Reading Past Relevant Work: the Composite Job

 

I like to submit a current medications list prior to a Social Security disablity hearing. Although a claimant's medications can usually be found in the medical records, it is very handy to have the meds listed in one place. 

Filing a medications list is a nice final update to the disability claim file, and it is a gesture to the judge that you have tried to provide everything necessary for the hearing.

A claimant's medications can also be compelling evidence of the severity of your impairment. Judges see a lot of medical records. They get a feel for a typical dose of certain medications. If you are on a higher dose, the judge may see that.

For the official Social Security form for a claimant's medications, just click on the link: Download HA-4632.