Disability Claim: DENIED!

Well, no surprise there, huh?  Everyone I’ve ever talked to about disability says you will get denied on your first application, but until you read it right there in black and white, you can’t fully appreciate how idiotic this whole process truly is.  We all know that there are injustices in the world, but never feel compelled to do anything about it until it happens to us and let me tell you, friends and neighbors, I wish I had the energy to do just that!

First of all, here’s the reason they gave for denying me:

“The medical evidence shows that your condition is not severe enough to be considered disabling.  We realize that your condition keeps you from doing any of your past jobs, but it does not keep you from doing less demanding work.  Based on you age, education, and past work experience, you can do other work.  It has been decided therefore, that you are not disabled according to the Social Security Act.”

I think it should be mandatory that these people who deny our claims also include a list of just what sort of jobs they think we can do.  Better yet, set us up an interview with the potential employer who wants to hire someone who can’t show up to work every day, is prone to show up late on the few days a month she can make it, needs to take a nap about mid-day, may or may not be able to actually do the work depending upon her brain’s willingness to function, requires a nice quiet, stress-free, temperature controlled work environment, can prop her feet up for a few minutes, then stand, this stretch out flat in the floor…  I MEAN COME ON PEOPLE!

Ok… enough about that.  We all know that this suggestion to work a less demanding job isn’t realistic.  But then they have to go and add this other part:

“If You Want Help With Your Appeal.  You can have a friend, lawyer, or someone else help you.  There are groups that can help you find a lawyer or give you free legal services if you qualify.  There are also lawyers who do not charge unless you win your appeal.  Your local Social Security office has a list of groups that can help you with your appeal. 

If you get someone to help you, you should let us know.  If you hire someone, we must approve the fee before he or she can collect it.  And if you hire a lawyer, we will withhold up to 25 percent of any past due Social Security benefits to pay toward this fee.”

Now I sort of–kind of–always knew it worked like that, but now that it is happening to me, I finally see how completely unfair it all is.  Think about this people… they are telling me I can hire a lawyer, but if the lawyer proves that the people who denied my claim are wrong, they make ME pay a PENALTY?  Shouldn’t that be the other way around?  If a lawyer proves I am disabled shouldn’t the SSDI people be forced to pay my attorney fees out of their own budget and give me a 25 percent penalty payment for the unnecessary delay?  Baffling!

So anyway, I guess my next step is to hire an attorney and write my local congressman about a bill to penalize SSDI for summarily denying claims that are later proved to be valid.