“Get turned down twice, then get a lawyer”

“Everybody says, you get turned down twice, then you get a lawyer.”  Don’t know how many times I’ve heard that in the last few years, but I do know that “everybody” isn’t giving good advice about how to get a Social Security Disability award.

If you’re planning to apply for Social Security Disability benefits,  you’re better off if you don’t listen to those folks on the street.  Plan on getting your lawyer right after you file and before you fill out any forms other than signing the application.

Why?  Because your lawyer is your advocate.  He starts arguing your case  when he talks through the answer to that first baffling question, “what do you do from the time you get up until you go to bed ?”,  with you and helps you word it in a way that communicates how hard your disability makes it for you to get through the day.  It goes from there — every question on every form is an opportunity to drive that point home to the folks reading the file that you really have a problem that prevents you from being employed.

When you apply, the clerk asks you who your doctors are and what are their addresses. The Disability Determination Service writes to your doctors and asks for their records for the last year.  If you’ve hired a good lawyer  at the outset, he’ll wait about six weeks to give the doctors a chance to respond, then he will get a computer disk of the reports and read them.

Reading the reports early on lets your lawyer learn what your doctors write down about your visits and enables him to teach you how to be a little pushy and encourage the doctor to write down the information claims analysts look for.  After that, every doctor visit becomes a source of information on which your case will be decided.

Reading the reports isn’t easy. Your doctor’s handwriting is likely to be as bad as your lawyer’s, and doctors have their own shorthand way of saying what’s wrong and remembering who you are the next time they see you.  If things aren’t clear, your lawyer will send a letter stating what he thinks was said in plain English and asking the doctor to correct anything he missed. That letter becomes a medical exhibit in your file.  A medical exhibit written so that everyone can understand it.  Big words are handled the same way.  When I’m reviewing records, I spend as much time Googling words and names of medicines as I do actually reading the report.  My guess is that if I don’t know what it is, the fellow at Disability Determination may not either, and that if I don’t explain it for him, he’ll just turn to the next page in order to make it through the amount of work he’s been assigned for the day.

There is some truth to what the folks in the street say, that ‘most everyone gets turned down twice. They usually do,  but if your lawyer fills out the form asking for the next step, reconsideration or a hearing before the judge, he gets another chance to argue your case!  At each level you will be sent the same forms to fill out, and if you work through them with your lawyer, well, I ‘ve already told you what he does.

Because almost all lawyers take Social Security Disability cases on a contingent fee basis, the 25% of past-due benefits up to $6,000.00 as allowed by Social Security, it costs no more to establish that relationship early on.  Every time you meet with your lawyer to work on a form, he gets to see firsthand how you’re doing, gets a chance to learn how you express yourself so that he can plan how to ask you questions if you have a hearing, and gets a chance to coach you on how to keep putting more information into the file to support a favorable decision.

“Get turned down twice, then get a lawyer.”  Don’t  wait to do it.  Get a lawyer who will work towards a favorable decision at every step of the process.