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

Getting Your Papers In Order

Tuesday Tips for the Frustrated Claimant

I frequently hear from people who have delayed filing because they want to get their papers together. My question is always, “What papers?”

There are no papers to gather before you file disability. When you put in a disability application, Social Security does the work of contacting the clinics, urgent cares, and hospitals where you have been treated. They gather the papers. All you have to do is sign release forms, state where you have been seen, and the approximate dates you were treated. You do not need to know specific dates of your appointments, sometimes all a person can recall is “winter last year” or even “one or two years ago” and it is enough to locate the medical records. 

If you have paperwork that you want to add to the claim, then this can be done after the application is filed. On average, after the application is filed, it takes over six months to get a decision. Send your papers after you file. For as long as it already takes, you do not want to add unnecessary time.

Bottom line: Do not delay filing your disability claim. Social Security will gather your papers. In the event that you need help, an experienced disability attorney can do it for you. If you are in North Carolina, we would be happy to help: 1-866-425-5347 is the number to call. If you want, we can call you:  www.hall-rouse.com is the website. You can do an online form giving us your contact information and we will reach out.

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 Does Social Security Turn Down So Many 100% Disabled Vets?

     Does it not seem odd that Social Security denies about 31% of disability claims filed by veterans with a 100% VA disability rating? Research was published on this 10 years ago. Nothing has changed since.

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

Higher Taxes On Billionaires To Support Social Security?

     According to a new opinion poll voters support higher taxes on billionaires in order to protect Social Security benefits. What do you think? I will say that whatever the merits of higher taxes on billionaires (and I think there's a lot of merit), it's going to take more than more taxes on billionaires.

    What do you think?

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

Creamy Or Crunchy?

I like creamy. You got a problem with that?

    Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley recently said that even though SSI “purports to be a program of last resort,” it “forces the poorest of people to jump through hoops, stand on their head and gargle peanut butter in order to qualify for it.” 

 

 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 Grim Numbers

 

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

Here's What's Going On At Ground Level At Social Security

     Here's a note made recently by an employee at my firm about a pending disability claim that may give you some idea of the state of service at Social Security :

TC [telephone call to] ____ DO [District Office] and she said there is an initial claim that has been sitting there since 7/14/2023. She is sending it to the CR [claims representative] Mr. ____ but he is off.

    In case you don't understand the context, the DO only takes the claims. They don't make medical determinations. Those are made at Disability Determination Services (DDS). Under normal circumstances -- which don't currently exist -- new claims are forwarded from the DO to DDS in a week or two. Even if there is some technical problem, the claim isn't supposed to be sitting at a DO for six months! 

    For this to happen there has to be no effective tickler system at the DO. I'm sure there's supposed to be one but it's broken down entirely under the enormous pressure of overwhelming workloads.

    I'm not even mad at the personnel involved because I have an idea of just how overwhelmed they are.  If a case happens to fall by the wayside now, we're just about at what I've described before as the "Not now. Not later. Not ever" stage of service. Problems aren't being straightened out.

    And please don't blame my firm. We've been trying for three months to find out what happened to the case. It's almost impossible to get anyone on the phone. There's no smart trick that solves cases like this. There's far too many of them. We're not supposed to be Social Security's tickler system anyway.

 

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

This Is What Social Security Calls The Waterfall Chart

     This is a chart showing what happens at each level of review in Social Security disability claims. Note that you have a much better chance of winning at the hearing level but you have to go through two time consuming steps before that. A lot of people get frustrated and give up. They try to go back to work but only last a short time before they're back starting all over again.

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 1-844-425-5347

Where's My Money?

     See the chart below. It's not just you. After deciding that someone is disabled Social Security keeps taking longer and longer to pay the benefits. This is really terrible for those approved for SSI benefits.

    Why? It's what I keep talking about. The agency doesn't have enough personnel to get the work done because Congress won't give them an adequate operating budget. Listen, I don't work for Social Security. If the problem was bad management at Social Security, I'd tell you but that's not the source of the problem.

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

Believe Them When They Keep Telling You Where They Stand

  From Bloomberg:

... The Republican Study Committee, which comprises about 80% of House Republicans, called for the Social Security eligibility age to be tied to life expectancy in its fiscal 2025 budget proposal. It also suggests reducing benefits for top earners who aren’t near retirement, including a phase-out of auxiliary benefits for the highest earners. ...

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

It's Taking Less Time To Get A Social Security Disability Hearing But That's Not Necessarily Good News

     It's taking less and less time to get a Social Security disability hearing. See below to see how much the backlogs have declined. That's the good news. The bad news is that it's taking less time because cases are backing up terribly at the initial and reconsideration levels. Altogether it's taking more and more time to get a claim adjudicated.

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

A Change For The Better

     On June 8 Social Security is changing its disability rules. It will only consider work done over the last five years in determining disability instead of fifteen years. This helps Social Security disability claimants. If you're filing for Social Security disability benefits you have to prove that you can't do the kind of work you used to do. Maybe you did a job 12 years ago that wasn't as physically demanding as work you've done more recently. Now you don't have to worry about proving that you can't still do a job that you can barely remember. 

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 Can't I Get Through To Social Security On The Phone?

     It's not just you. It's not just the phone number you're using. It's not just one or a few Social Security employees. The problem is much bigger than that. The Social Security Administration doesn't have enough employees to get the job done because its operating budget isn't high enough.

    You can do two things about this problem:

• Quit calling. Go to the office in person. Waiting around at the Social Security office for an hour or two sucks but it doesn't such as much as spending even more time than that trying to call Social Security.
• Complain to your member of Congress. That's who controls Social Security's operating budget

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