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Posts from the ‘Hearings’ Category

19
Mar

“The Rest of The Story” Man Dies

Stand by for news!

A new client informed me that Paul Harvey had died. Why was I talking to my new client about Paul Harvey when we were discussing her disability case? I knew that if she had heard radio legend Paul Harvey’s show, The Rest of the Story, she could learn and understand an important lesson about her disability case. Like so many others, she was not telling The Rest of the Story.

Paul Harvey’s radio show always had a spot he called “The Rest of the Story”. Paul always had an interesting story that he would begin to tell. He would let you know how the story would end and give you some facts up to the commercial. When you heard the facts that he told you up to the commercial, the story did not make any sense because you just could not understand how given those facts there could be the end he had told you about. In fact, many times, I thought it was impossible!

Once Paul came back from the commercial, he would tell you The Rest of the Story. Paul would add one or two more facts, and the story would fall into place. Suddenly, the impossible ending was not only possible, it was required!

Based upon what my client had told me, I knew that she had left out some very important facts out of her disability story. I started talking to her about Paul Harvey’s radio show. I told her she had only gotten up to the commercial. I told her that her disability story did not make sense. She needed to tell The Rest of the Story. Once I pointed out to her the facts she had left out, she began to realize how she was not bothering to tell very important facts. She understood that she needed to tell The Rest of the Story.

Many people who have been turned down for disability do not realize that they are not telling The Rest of the Story. Paul Harvey’s radio program has been a valuable tool to help them understand how they can tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth by telling The Rest of the Story.

Paul Harvey will be missed.

19
Feb

Preparation the Key to Success in Disability Hearings

At the meeting in my office the day before her hearing, my client was stunned to see that the medical records we had submitted in her case were over a foot high. “You know more about me than anyone else,” she said. “You have been there with me every step of the way. I could not ask for any more to be done.” We had tracked down all of these records as we wanted to be sure that the ALJ had a complete picture of her medical problems. We wanted to be sure that we were prepared with evidence for all situations.

I went over her case with her in preparation for the hearing the next day. We discussed our theory as to why she should be found disabled under the rules of Social Security. We discussed her past work and discussed why her medical conditions prevented her from being able to do that work. I reminded her how a Social Security hearing was different from “TV court” and from other court proceedings. When I asked her if she had any other questions about her hearing, she said she felt that she was ready. She had read our memo about testifying at her hearing and said it answered so many of her questions that she felt she was now ready for the hearing.

After she left, I prepared my questions for the vocational expert. From my past experience, I knew that her past work had been light work that had transferable skills. I knew enough that I could handle the questioning of the vocational expert without any further preparation, but I went ahead and looked up all of the details in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. I wanted to be over prepared “just in case.”

Because of all of our preparation, the hearing went smoothly. She answered each of the judge’s questions with the whole truth. The client got the result that she wanted. As I thought, I did not really need to look up all of the details in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. But you never know for sure how a hearing will go. I still follow the motto of the Boy Scouts that I learned so many years ago-Be Prepared. It is still the key to success.

12
Feb

Indianapolis ODAR Processing Time Update

A recent report on average processing time of a Social Security disability claim from the time of the Request for Hearing shows that the processing time is becoming shorter at the Indianapolis Office of Disability Adjudication and Review. In a prior post, I noted that the processing time was 896 days. A recent report shows that the processing time has been reduced by 177 days to an average processing time of 719 days. The average processing time at Evansville was reported to be 588 days and Ft. Wayne is listed at 600 days. This is tangible proof that while the wait is still very long, things are improving.

5
Feb

What Is Your Level of Pain?

That is what the nurse was asking me recently as I lay in my hospital bed after my surgery. She wanted me to rate my pain from 0 to 10. I had pushed the button for the nurse and asked her for another morphine shot. I knew it was time to have it by the pain I was having, and by the doctor’s orders I could have had it sooner, but what number should I put on my pain?

I told the nurse that I hated the pain scale as I have had clients who had rated their pain at a number that the judge in their disability case thought was the wrong number for what they were describing. “What is a level 5, what is a level 8?” I asked. I was over-thinking this and the nurse just wanted to chart it, give me my shot, and move on. She agreed with me that the number was arbitrary, but that she needed to chart it. So I picked a number.

As I lay in my hospital bed, I could not help but think of the countless hearings I have been in where the judge has asked my clients to rate their pain. One judge said that a 10 was the worst pain you could imagine. What he did not say was that if you said a 10 he automatically disbelieved you as he believed that no one could be sitting there with a pain level of 10 (he never told them that to their faces). Other judges had no problem with a pain level 10.

I hate the pain scale because there is no way for us all to calibrate our measurements so that they are all the same. I have observed clients in great pain who state that their pain is a 6. I have had other clients who appeared to be in less pain that also said that their pain was a 6. So what is a level 6?

How did I want to compare the pain I had the two nights that I could not sleep from the pain to the pain that I had after surgery? There was a time I thought my pain might be a 10, but what about those I have seen who suffered more than I did those two nights I could not sleep? If delivering a baby is a pain level of 10, was my pain that bad? Since I am a man, I will obviously never know how my pain compares to the pain of childbirth.

So I started to answer the nurse the way I advise my clients to tell their medical providers about the pain. I started to describe the pain without putting a number on it. I started to give the nurse details about the pain. How it felt. Where it was. What aggravated it (at that point for me it was just shifting in the bed). What kind of pain it was ( by this I mean was it hot, cold, constant, throbbing, stabbing, electrifying ect.) How intense it was. She wrote down my description. Now a “real” description of my pain was recorded.

It is important to get a “real” description of your pain recorded into the medical records every time you visit your medical provider. This will allow the judge to read your descriptions and know how your pain was at the beginning of your disability and how the pain continued during all of the time that was disabled. If you only give a number, you and the judge may have different ideas as to what that means. The only way you could “both be on the same page” would be for you to calibrate with the judge your pain measurements on the same scale to discover that your 6 is his or her 8. The problem is that this can not happen until the hearing, and the judge will have already read the file and decided how bad your level 6 pain is. It may be hard for the judge to change his mind. If your full blown description of the pain is in your medical records, the judge will read that as he reads the file and decides how bad your pain is.

Your full blown description of the pain in your medical records is vital to your case.

11
Sep

Indianapolis ODAR Transferring Disability Cases Due to SSA Backlog

The Indianapolis ODAR is again transferring disability cases to other offices. We just got a batch of notices for several cases. The notices state that the case will still be heard in Indianapolis, but that it will be assigned to another judge in another office. We now have clients with their cases in Illinois and Arizona. Read moreRead more

10
Sep

Congressional Subcommittee to Hold Hearings on SSA Backlog

Congressman Michael R. McNulty (D-NY), Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security of the Committee on Ways and Means, announced that the Subcommittee will hold a hearing on the performance of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) appeals hearing offices on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 Read moreRead more

18
Aug

Indianapolis ODAR Average Processing Time

According to a recently released report from SSA, as of June 27, 2008, the Average Processing Time at the Indianapolis Office of Disability Adjudication and Review (“ODAR”) is 896 days. By this ranking, Indianapolis was in 147th place out of 147th ODARs. The Evansville ODAR was at 136th place with 762 days. Fort Wayne was at 130th place with 711 days.

In a previous report, as of May 30, 2008, Indianapolis was in 144th place with average processing time of 815 days, Evansville was 135th place with average processing time of 704 days, and Fort Wayne was 122nd place with average processing time of 638 days.

Why is there such a delay at the hearing offices? Click Here!

9
Jul

The Whole Truth

Sometimes claimants forget that in the questions that Social Security asks, they are always really asking: “how does your medical impairment keep you from working?”

Social Security asks a lot of questions about what you do during the day. These types of questions are about your activities of daily living. The idea is that if Social Security asks you what you do day in and day out and learns what you do, they can then figure out if your medical impairment would prevent you from working.

So, what does Social Security conclude if you state that you go out to eat several times a month? This depends upon what your medical impairments are.  Assume you cannot work due to back pain. You cannot stand for more than 15 minutes at a time before you have to sit down for 15 minutes. You cannot sit for more than 30 minutes before you have to stand or lie down. Can you guess what conclusions Social Security is likely to jump to about your ability to work because you go out to eat?

When I go over these types of issues with my clients, they have no idea what the real question is that they are answering. Due to not knowing the real question, they do not tell all that they know that is relevant to the real question. Since they do not tell everything they know that is relevant to the real question, they actually end up in effect lying.  They are not telling the whole truth, only part of the truth. Do not misunderstand me, they are trying to tell the truth, but they do not understand the real question.  They are not telling all that they know which is critical to answering the real question. This partial truth-only part of the facts-is used by Social Security to reach conclusions about whether or not they are disabled. When they do not have all of the facts, how can Social Security make the right decision?

Some Administrative Law Judges will compare what the claimants says at the hearing with what they told SSA at the beginning of the process before the claimant understood what was really being asked.  If there is any variation, they conclude that the claimant is not being truthful.  Our clients want to tell the truth. We help them to tell the whole truth at the beginning of the process. We help them understand the question – the real issues in the questions that Social Security is going to ask them. Do you have someone with the experience needed to help you tell the whole truth?

7
Jul

Five Step Sequential Evaluation

Social Security uses a 5 step sequential evaluation process to decide your claim. Read moreRead more

3
Jul

Celebrate Our Liberty and Rights

us flag

I hope you have a fun and safe Fourth of July. It is a great time to celebrate our liberty and rights. The holiday is known as Independence Day because our forefathers had to fight for our liberty and rights. The government of that time (British) did not want to recognize the rights that we were claiming. It was only by our forefathers fighting hard and not giving up that we have our rights today.

No one man could do it by himself. Read moreRead more

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