WINNING DIFFICULT DISABILITY CASES

Let's face it, some Social Security disability cases are tougher than others.  There are a lot of factors that can make this true.

One sure sign of a difficult case is one that has been denied two or three times already.

The best chance of winning one of these cases is through new medical evidence from a doctor or other provider.  

The first thing I would attempt is to enlist the aid of the claimant's treating physician.  Doctors are not allowed to decide who is disabled.  However, they can provide an opinion on how much work the claimant is able to perform.  Often, this opinion is enough to turn the case around.

We must decide on the venue for presenting new evidence.  Do we want to file a new claim or pursue an appeal?  Again, that depends on a lot of factors that need careful analysis.

When disability claimants come to me, they can be in various stages of the process:

1.  The claim may not have been filed yet, so we begin from the ground up.

2.  The claim may have been filed but not yet decided by the state reviewing agency, so we are still on ground level, waiting on the first decision.

3.  The application may have been denied and the claim is ready to be appealed. We ask for a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ).

4.  The application may have been denied and an appeal may already have been filed by the claimant, who is just waiting to get on the docket for a hearing. We have a lot of work to do before the hearing is scheduled.

5. The claim may have been denied, a hearing has been held, and the claim was denied a second time by a judge.  It is now ready for a review by the Appeals Counsel.

6.  The claim may have been denied by the state agency, denied by the hearing judge, and denied again by the Appeals Counsel.  Consideration must now be given toward filing a suit in federal district court against the Commissioner of Social Security. 

Obviously, the more times a claim has been looked at and denied, the more difficult the claim becomes to win. 

Our job is to sit down with a claimant, decide where the claim is in the process, and what needs to be done next.

We never charge a fee for looking at a claim, analyzing it, and trying to determine if we can "add value" to the case.