Social Security Disability Nighmare
PASMdude relates his horrifying story of trying to get on Social Security disability.
PASMdude: Since I am on Social Security disability I’ve been asked basically how the process works. It is very, very difficult and there’s a huge bureaucracy that has manuals this thick, on how to deny you and you can almost be certain that you’re going to get denied the first time. You’re probably going to be denied the second time. You’ll probably actually have to see a judge to actually get your disability.
They normally just try to find any technical reason they can to deny you and they hope you will eventually give up. But, anyway, during this process you cannot work. So you have to have somebody that is willing to support you for a year to a year and a half while you’re trying to get disability or you’re just screwed. You’re probably not going to be able to get it. Another thing is you’re going to have to have worked twenty quarters out of a certain number of years to be eligible. So if you are a housewife that hasn’t worked much, you’re probably really just out of luck.
Some of the technicalities they use to disqualify you are… the main one that I remember is failure to have documented medically what’s wrong with you. For instance, I was just covered… I mean, I was just one huge gaping sore and I just two pictures of me laying there, you know, with a 103 degree fever and they turned me down for my skin disease, because I had not documented that I had been to a doctor consistently for 12 months and the treatments had not worked. So this is the kind of rationality that they will try to use to deny you. I once ran across the official manual – I wish I could find it but I can’t – that shows the criteria you need to get disability, and it’s a huge pain, believe me. You may have trouble getting disability even if you deserve it, I don’t think you have to worry very much about somebody faking it, it’s pretty much impossible.
If you think that you are going to end being disabled, the first thing you need to do is you need to start documenting it. You need to go to the doctor once a month for this problem and just keep going and try everything that they throw at you, try every medicine and make sure you have documented that you have done everything you can do for your condition under the supervision of a physician and that has not worked. That’s the first thing that I would suggest.
You’ll go through a lot of interviews, they’ll probably send you to some doctors and they’ll evaluate you and that will all end up in your record. But still, even if you have x-rays, like I had of my hands and my back, my hip, they still asked, “Did you go to a doctor for 12 months and try everything they had to make your back okay?” Well, no I didn’t, so I was denied there. I ended up having to go before a judge and practically beg. I was fortunate enough that the lady that applied for my disability for me really believed in me and she represented me in court for no charge and she worked for Social Security. So apparently they took her at face value that I really should be on disability. And now it’s up for review again and I’m really nervous about that because they’re going to go through this entire process again, trying to find some way to kick me off.
They sent me a huge package of papers. I filled them out and sent them off, got another package of papers from a totally different place asking almost exactly the same questions that I got to get mailed off and I’ll probably end up getting kicked off, or probably have to file an appeal, or probably have go to before a judge again or something like that. Or else pay an attorney more money than I can afford to represent me. But anyway, the process is pretty crazy. I wouldn’t rely on it if I were you because, like I said, first of all you have to have somebody that’s willing to support you because you will not be able to work during the process when you are being considered. So somebody asked me if they should get disability insurance at work and yea, I think I would consider that.
My sister did not have any quarters to qualify for Social Security disability. She’s actually out on her company’s disability which pays her for like, you know, five years or something. She has no idea what she is going to do after that. Believe me, it’s a complicated process and I hope that you never have to go through it, but if you really think you’re going to have to end up having to apply for disability, you’re going to need some parents or somebody that’s going to support you for the time it takes go get approved. And you’re going to need tons of medical records and document every fucking thing. Go to the doctor every goddamn day if you need to. Go to the ER, but make sure that when you do come up you have more medical records that they’re even willing to look for.
That will be my advice to anyone that thinks they might become disabled.
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