What Do I Need To Get Together Before I File A Claim For Social Security Disability?

    The answer in the question posed by the title is NOTHING! People worry and worry about what they need to do before filing for Social Security disability but they really just need to get on with it. You don't have to do any preparation before contacting Social Security. Any mistakes that people make in filing claims are minor and can be corrected later.

    Delay is your enemy if you're a disabled person. Almost every disabled person keeps getting poorer and poorer until they get approved for Social Security disability benefits. Don't wait until you're about to become homeless before you get going. The Social Security Administration itself is slow enough without you adding delay.

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

How Do I Prepare For My Social Security Disability Hearing?

     How do you prepare for your Social Security disability hearing? Make sure you know whether the hearing will be in person or by video or by telephone. If it's in person, make sure you know where it will be held and how you'll get there. If it's by video, make sure you have a quiet place with good wifi and make sure you have a device that can handle video and audio. It's better if the device is a tablet or laptop. Holding a cell phone in your hand isn't such a good way of doing it. If it's be telephone, expect a call near the scheduled time for the hearing and make sure you have a quiet place.

    What about preparing to testify? You really don't need to prepare. This isn't a math test. You can't study for it. If you really feel you have to do something to prepare, ask yourself a couple of questions:\

• Why did I stop work?
• Why haven't I gone back to work?

Those questions may be harder than you think.  You may not have been thinking too clearly since you've been out of work. You've been under a lot of stress. You've had little time to ask yourself these basic questions.

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

Some Good News

    Things got a little less difficult for Social Security disability claimants on June 22. The agency issued an Emergency Message on which jobs can be considered as alternative work a claimant can perform if he or she is unable to perform their past relevant work. You may find it hard to believe but Social Security has been turning down huge numbers of claimants based upon the supposed existence of these obsolete jobs.

DOT Code	DOT Occupational Title	DOT Industry Designation
209.587-010	Addresser	clerical
249.587-018	Document Preparer, Microfilming	business services
249.587-014	Cutter-and-Paster, Press Clippings	business services
239.687-014	Tube Operator	clerical
318.687-018	Silver Wrapper	hotel and restaurant
349.667-010	Host/Hostess, Dance Hall	amusement and recreation
349.667-014	Host/Hostess, Head	amusement and recreation
379.367-010	Surveillance-System Monitor	government services
521.687-010	Almond Blancher, Hand	canning and preserving
521-687-086	Nut Sorter	canning and preserving
726.685-010	Magnetic-Tape Winder	recording
782.687-030	Puller-Through	glove and mitten
976.385-010	Microfilm Processor	business services

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-866-425-5347

I'm On Social Security Disability Benefits. What Happens When I Hit Full Retirement Age?

    The answer to the question is "Nothing that will matter to you."  You don't have to file a retirement claim. You'll automatically be converted to retirement benefits at the same rate of pay (unless you were receiving workers compensation, in which case your Social Security benefit payment may go up). The payments start coming out of a different trust fund but that won't matter to you.

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

Sorry To Give You Grim News But Here It Is

 

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

"The Breath Of The Dead"

    I am always distressed to see how brutally Social Security treats disability claimants with severe liver disease. One feature of dealing with clients with failing livers is officially called fetor hepaticus. It's sometimes called "breath of the dead." It's an extremely disturbing smell on the breath of some people with failing livers. I wonder whether any of those who make Social Security's standards for liver disease cases have ever smelled fetor hepaticus. The idea that anyone whose liver disease has progressed to this point can work seems preposterous once you smell it yet such patients are often denied Social Security disability benefits. It's not the smell that disables them. It's just obvious that anyone with that smell isn't long for this world. I can't emphasize too much just how viscerally disturbing fetor hepaticus is. It smells as if the person has already started dying on the inside. Why are patients in this condition being denied? 

 

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

Don't Believe Everything You Read Online

     Social Security's Commissioner, Martin O'Malley tweeted today that:

SSA 800 # was slammed on June 3. Over 463,000 calls -- 140k more calls than a few days earlier. Why? In part because of a bogus news story about a $600 payment increase. This is FALSE: No COLA until January 2025. Big thanks to all SSA staff who helped customers with this rumor.

    The agency has enough problems serving the public without hoaxes like this!

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-866-425-5347

Despite What Some People Say, Work Isn't Getting Any Easier

    From the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College:

For obvious reasons, people who do physically demanding work are prone to injuring themselves on the job and are more likely than office workers to apply for federal disability benefits.

But is technology changing this relationship?

We know technology has caused a decline in manual labor, and the blue-collar jobs that remain are also easier to perform when machinery and computers are doing more of the heavy lifting workers used to do – think warehouse robots that alleviate the need to lift and carry heavy boxes.

But new research based on a survey of couples between ages 51 and 61 – a population that is particularly vulnerable to illness and musculoskeletal disabilities – finds no evidence they feel the physical demands on them are lessening. If anything, they said, the requirements for motions like stooping, lifting, or crouching have increased somewhat since the early 1990s.

Their perceptions conflict with the other studies showing an easing in the demands on blue-collar workers. But those studies are not based on what older people are saying about their jobs but on analyses of an occupational database that rates the intensity of the specific tasks required in each job. One example is how many pounds a warehouse worker must lift and how often that is required. ...

 If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

Not Now. Not Later. Not Ever

                              When we're rushed, we cut corners and we make more mistakes than usual. Social Security employees are rushed. They're cutting corners. They're making lots of mistakes. They're putting off difficult work. Even in the best of times, there are some things which didn't get done properly to begin with that need to be corrected but in these terrible times there are many, many of these.

    The stress on Social Security employees isn't going away. They will remain overburdened indefinitely. My firm asks them to straighten out their mistakes but they don't have time to do it. It's getting to the point that I think the work isn't going to get done now. It's not going to get done later. It's never going to get done, at least not in the foreseeable future. 

    What kinds of mistakes or omissions am I seeing? Let me list a few:

• Claimant's monthly benefits are authorized but nothing is done about paying the back benefits or attorney fees.
• Claimant receives a small payment that is apparently their back benefits but it seems far too low. No award certificate is issued so the claimant and attorney can't figure out whether there has been a mistake.
• There's what I call a phantom windfall offset. Claimant filed an SSI claim which was quickly denied on income or resources. When the Title II claim is approved, no back benefits are paid because they're waiting on payment of the SSI benefits so they can do the windfall offset. Meanwhile, no back benefits or attorney fees are paid.
  
• A field office employee makes one telephone call to a claimant about implementing SSI benefits. They can't leave a message so they immediately deny the claim for failure to cooperate. (They're supposed to make repeated efforts to contact the claimant and those who may be able to help, such as the claimant's attorney but that takes time, so they just get the claim off their desk by denying it.)
• A fee petition is approved. That's a little unusual so it doesn't get paid.

    This is a depressing, discouraging situation for an attorney like me who wants to help his clients and who wants to receive the fees he's entitled to for helping them.

    Social Security is undergoing enormous stress. I think it's fair to say it's falling apart. Asking employees to work harder isn't going to solve the problem. The systems updates and IT changes the agency is making hardly help at all. Making employees come into the office every day would make little or no difference. The only solution is a lot more employees, like 10,000 more, but that might cost another billion dollars or so a year so it's out of the question now.

    I don't think the message is getting through to the public or members of Congress about just how bad things are.

 If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347

Disability And Increasing Age

 

If you're in NC and want help with your Social Security disability claim, call Hall & Rouse, P.C. at 1-844-425-5347