Social Security

Social Security’s decision to award you benefits depends a lot on the credibility of your statements. In other words, Social Security needs to believe that you truly are disabled. They need to believe that you experience the symptoms you claim to experience, in example, pain, weakness, or memory loss. They also need to believe that your symptoms make it impossible to carry out daily tasks entailed in basic work situations, as in, walking, sitting, lifting, or communicating.

Appeals are offered to claimants at all levels of decisions - except if your current claim is denied at federal court the option at the point for claimants is to start a new claim. Generally, you have sixty days after you receive the notice of decision to ask for any type of appeal.

A Social Security disability attorney is a guide to making the disability process much simpler for you; from the initial application, appealing denial to preparing for an administrative hearing. An experienced disability attorney can protect you from making common errors that can harm chances of approval.

I found myself surprised recently as the Social Security Administration recently held a hearing and added more conditions to their Compassionate Allowances list. I find it difficult to swallow that the SSA has any level of compassion, but that is my personal opinion. The Compassionate Allowances program was launched in 2008 to help expedite processing of claims which fall under certain medical criteria and include diagnoses confirming any one of 50 medical conditions. This list has since grown, and effective August 2012 will total 165 conditions.

In many discussions our office has had with new clients we are told, or come to find, only a couple of conditions have been listed with the Social Security Administration office when the application was filed. During subsequent conversations we come to discover there is much more going on than just the one or two conditions or symptoms that are affecting our clients. I cannot stress enough how important it is to consider ALL of what is preventing you from working. So many of us want to dismiss the “minor” discomforts for as long as possible for sake of it being just than – a discomfort.