Have You Found That Notices From Social Security Are Hard To Understand?

     This is what Social Security's Commissioner had to say recently about his own agency's notices:

The notices that we send out, I have described them as Mad Libs written by mad lawyers that confuse, they scare, and most people have a difficult time understanding what many of these notices even say.

 

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

A Poll

 

online polls

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

The Death Of Children And Social Security Disability

     Those who represent Social Security claimants become aware of something very sad. There are so many claimants who have suffered the death of a child. I've got no numbers but I've been struck over the years by how frequently this comes up. I'm talking about adult children as well as young children. I'm talking about deaths from disease as well as deaths from accidents and assaults and deaths by drug overdose. We all know these deaths occur and that they're tragic but, thank goodness, it's uncommon. Yet, it seems that once a month I'm seeing a parent who has lost a child. We all know that these deaths have terrible effects upon families when they do occur. Most of the time it's not psychiatric illness that gets the claimant but a very real physical ailment.

    I wish someone would do a study on this.

    I don't know how people survived in the bad old days when childhood deaths were so common. My own grandmother was a generally cheerful woman and certainly a wonderful person but there always seemed a tinge of sadness about her. I only found out later that she had lost two children to a typhoid epidemic before my father was born and was never quite the same again. (Yes, I'm that old but typhoid epidemics aren't as far back in this country's history as you might think.) I now possess a memorial quilt that she made after these deaths. I'm sure that making that quilt helped with her grief.

 

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

Waiting Times Worse In Deep South

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

Disability And Homelessness

Despite the picture, couch surfing isn't funny

    From Yahoo Finance:

Many baby boomers across the country are now coming to terms with the hard reality that working for your entire adult life is no longer enough to guarantee you’ll have a roof over your head in your later years.

Thanks in part to a series of recessions, high housing costs and a shortage of affordable housing, older adults are now the fastest-growing segment of America’s homeless population, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, based on data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ...

Now, the over-50 demographic represents half of the homeless single adults in the U.S. — with no sign of their numbers slowing, leaving baby boomers (those aged 57 to 75) particularly vulnerable.

“Elderly homelessness has been rare within the contemporary homeless problem. We’ve always had very few people over 60 who’ve been homeless historically,” Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania told PBS NewsHour. ...

    I'm sure there are many reasons for this increase in homelessness among older people but the failures of Social Security's disability programs have to be a major factor. There are far, far too many disabled people in homeless shelters.

 

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

Memorial Day 2024

 

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

If You're Able To Read This, Count Your Blessings; If You're Not, Expect That Others Won't Understand Your Problem

     According to a recent study 54% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 74 read below the equivalent of a sixth grade education.

    Why does this matter for Social Security? That 54% account for the vast majority of disability claims, particularly those disability claims which are most likely to generate appeals. The thing is that if you develop serious health problems, you have something to fall back on if you become disabled if you've got good mental abilities. If you're a fire fighter, for instance, and your knees give out but you're not too old, you may be able to switch to being a 911 operator, for instance, because you have a little background in the field and you probably have enough intellectual ability to learn a new job. However, if  you're a roofer, you may not be able to make the transition to being a roofing estimator, for instance, because you may not have the innate intellectual ability. (I'm sure there are plenty of smart roofers but it's hard, dangerous work with poor pay so who do you think ends up in these jobs, for the most part? Did you think people take roofing jobs simply because they like working outside?) Add in increased age, which reduces adaptability, and switching to work with fewer physical demands but requiring more intellectual ability becomes extremely difficult. Don't think that age makes a difference in adaptability? You're almost certainly young. Wait until you're older. You'll understand.

    There are those on the right who honestly believe that way too many people are approved for Social Security disability, that those people may have some health problems but that they could easily switch to less demanding jobs if it wasn't so easy to get Social Security disability benefits. Well, it's not at all easy to get Social Security disability benefits nor is it easy for most of the workforce to switch to less physically demanding jobs.

 

 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 You Give Good Public Service When Your Employees Are Really Unhappy? You Don't!

    From Federal Times:

The results are in, and the Social Security Administration took last place among the best places to work in the federal government.

Each year, the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service analyzes job satisfaction among federal workers and ranks agencies against that by size. ...

    Why such unhappiness? They're overworked. Management spurs them harder and harder but no matter how hard they work backlogs keep getting worse. It's a discouraging situation.  Most of them want to give the public the service they deserve but they can't.

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

From Social Security: Top Baby Names

Click on image to view full size

 

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

47% Of Disabled Americans Aren't Getting The Help They Need

    From a television station in New York:

A researcher estimates that over 1 million Americans with disabilities aren't getting the benefits they may need.

Zachary Morris, an assistant professor at the Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare, wanted to look at how well a couple of big Social Security programs are working for people.

Morris analyzed data on people between 50 and 64, shy of retirement age, who have work-limiting disabilities.

He found just 47% of these folks, Americans who are theoretically eligible for benefits, get Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income or both. ...

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

On Being Disabled And Homeless In Rural America

    I recently talked with a disability client who would become homeless in a few days. Actually, she already was homeless since she's been couch surfing, which is a form of homelessness, but she's about to lose even that. She lives in a rural area with no homeless shelter. There is nowhere for her to go. She has no idea what to do. She needed money immediately but I had nothing to offer. What do I tell her? Hop a bus to an unfamiliar city so she could stay in a dangerous public homeless shelter?

    While Social Security promises to speed up cases for the homeless, in the real world little preference is actually given. This client's case will take months if not years.Yes, I'll ask that her case be labeled as "dire need" but, at least where I am, that's nearly meaningless. 

    Don't sit there and smugly think that, of course, if I really tried, I could get Social Security to act on her case immediately. If you think that, you have no idea how bad things are at Social Security. Immediate help was never available to anyone not already found disabled. We are well past the days when anyone at Social Security could or would do anything to help. I'm sure this gnaws away at many Social Security employees as much as it does me.

    There's nothing unusual about her case. Being homeless in an urban areas is a terrible thing but rural homelessness may be even worse, especially since it draws so little public attention.

 

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

Why Did The Rate At Which Social Security Disability Claims Were Filed Plummet After 2000?

 

    Answer to the question posed above: It's because Social Security started turning down more and more people. You can still win. It's just harder now.

    Call Hall and Rouse for help with your Social Security disability claim.

Social Security Disability: Working Despite the Pain

Who wants to admit that their bodies have mentally or physically given out? No one I know. Most of the people I have helped with their Social Security Disability would much rather have a steady paycheck from work rather than dealing with Social Security. Generally, you have to be out of work to file for Disability. If you are still working but it is getting more difficult, you may be receiving written warnings about your performance. I know you may want to toss these into the garbage. My advice: Save them. Written warnings about work performance or copies of performance improvement plans can show proof that your health was affecting your ability to work.

If you are recently out of work and there is a shift leader, manager, or company owner who is willing to attest to the problems you had keeping a regular work schedule, ask them to write a statement for you. Just like the other scenario, this can show proof of the way your health was affecting your work.

With that said, a statement from a former employer is not necessary. In disability law, the most weight is placed on medical records and what the records show about your mental and physical function. The combination of medical records plus paperwork from a former employer about the problems you had with performance or attendance can go a long way.

If you are in North Carolina and you need a Social Security disability attorney who will help you gather the documentation that the law requires, call us! 866-425-5347

Wait Times For Social Security Hearings Worst On West Coast

 

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

Top Three Tips for Winning a Social Security Disability Case

Tuesday Tips for the Frustrated Claimant

Injured, sick, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, frequent flare ups, migraine 

headaches—the list goes on. 

All good reasons to file for Social Security disability. All reasons likely to be overlooked by Social Security and end with denied claims. 

What can you do to win your case? The top three tips I would give are these:

 ·         Stay in medical treatment of any sort

Once out of work, it is hard to get treatment because of lack of money and lack of health insurance. You may be worried that you can’t see a specialist, or that your MRI was denied because of the cost. Don’t be. Even going to a local health department produces medical documentation to support disability. Many states have databases of free and charitable clinics. In North Carolina, visit https://ncafcc.org/

 ·         Take medications as-prescribed

We get it. Medications are expensive. Whether the medications are only available at full-cost, or the co-pay is not affordable, people easily find themselves running out of medications with no way to refill them. The problem is that Social Security laws will often judge how your health is doing when you are following prescribed treatment. To get over that hurdle, look into medication assistance programs offered through the Dept of Health and Human Services. In North Carolina, DHHS publishes a county list that you can access by clicking here and then clicking on “Medication Assistance Program Sites.” North Carolina also has a statewide free pharmacy program for uninsured and low income patients https://medassist.org/free-pharmacy-program/

·         Appeal your application when it gets denied

Most applications are denied when sent for the first review. Perhaps the greatest tip: Appeal and Appeal Again. There are policies, both written and unwritten, that lead to applications being denied on the first review. They are likely to be denied again the first time you appeal. Most cases stand their best shots at the administrative hearing level. You only have 60 days to appeal! If you are in North Carolina, and need help with your disability appeal, call us here at Hall & Rouse, 866-425-5347, or click the link on our website hall-rouse.com.  

Get Down In The Weeds

    Let's say you want to really get down in the weeds on Social Security matters. Here's a few places you can go online to see what's happening at the agency that administers Social Security:

• Congressional Research Service -- Posts reports on all kind of things, including Social Security. Tends to be written at the elementary level since they're writing for members of Congress and their staffs.
• FOIA Reading Room -- Social Security posts some of their more popular responses to Freedom of Information requests.
• HALLEX -- An manual for agency employees working on hearings and appeals.
• POMS Recent Changes -- POMS is Social Security's main staff manual.
• ALJ Discussion Board -- Where some of the agency's Administrative Law Judges go to talk about agency matters but it's mostly for wannabe ALJs.
• Disability Stats -- Statistics on Social Security disability claims.
• Emergency Messages -- Important staff instructions but usually not really about emergencies.
• Federal Register -- Where official notices are posted.
• OIG Reports -- Where the agency's Office of Inspector General posts reports on investigations they have completed.
• OMB Regs Review -- Changes to regulations that Social Security has asked the Office of Management and Budget to review.
• Social Security Contracting -- Where Social Security posts information about contractors they are seeking.
  

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

Don't Be Your Own Worst Enemy!

 

    You probably already know that Social Security takes what seems like forever to act on Social Security disability claims. That's an enormous problem. You're waiting and waiting for Social Security to act while your savings are rapidly dwindling. You worry about being dependent on relatives and friends.

    I'll tell you how many disabled people deal with this problem. They make it worse! How do they make it worse? Faced with Social Security's backlogs and the indignity of filing a claim in the first place, they work hard to convince themselves they don't really need to file a Social Security disability claim because they'll get better and go back to work but they never do get back to work.

    If you've been out of work for more than six months due to illness or injury, the chances of you getting back to anything like regular work for long are slim. If you don't accept this harsh reality, you'll be making a bad situation worse but adding even more time to a process that already takes too long. I've had clients who waited seven years before applying for Social Security disability benefits, all the time fooling themselves into believing they'll get better and go back to work.

    One important thing about this is that applying for Social Security disability benefits doesn't prevent you from going back to work. Depending upon when you go back to work, how much you earn and how long you're able to do it, the work may not make a bit of difference. In any case, you're not going to get in trouble as long as you don't try to conceal the work from Social Security.

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

There's Help For Frustrated Social Security Disability Claimants

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

What's A BNC?

     You may have noticed that correspondence from Social Security these days lacks a Social Security number. Instead there's a BNC. You may have even noticed that the BNC changes from time to time. What is this BNC?

    The BNC is an attempt to protect your security. They're afraid that correspondence intended for you will be stolen. With the name and Social Security number a person up to no good could try some form of identity theft. Instead they're substituting a number they create for you and they change it from time to time. They know who the BNC refers to. They don't expect you to remember your BNC or to use it.

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

Twelve Secrets For Doing Your Best At Your Social Security Disability Hearing

 

1. Don't dress up. It's not necessary. It tends to make you look healthier than you are.
2. Other than a wedding ring, leave the jewelry at home.
3. Keep makeup to a minimum.
4. No fancy fingernails.
   
5. To the extent it's practical, cover up tattoos.
6.  The hearing isn't a math test. You can't study for it.
7.  Tell the truth. If you're not going to win the case on the truth, you're not going to win the case. Telling the truth also means that you don't try to minimize your problems. If you want a fair decision, you have to tell the judge what's keeping you from working even though you might not want to admit to weakness. They're not handing out medals for bravery!
   
8.  If you don't remember something, just say you don't remember. If you don't know, say you don't know. That's part of telling the truth. 
9.  Don't worry about calling the judge "Your honor" or anything like that. Just be polite. 
10.  Don't worry if you can't remember dates. No one does. The judge has a lot of medical and other records that establish when things happened.
11. When you're asked a question, listen to it and answer just that question. Don't come in prepared with a speech you want to give. Just let your attorney shape the narrative and ask the questions that need to be asked and answered.
12.  Don't expect a decision on the date of the hearing because it's not likely to happen.

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