ERISA Disability Questions Answered: DOT, Sedentary Work, and Unemployment

Welcome to Season 6, Episode 3 of Winning Isn't Easy. In this episode, we'll dive into the complicated topic of ERISA Disability Questions Answered: DOT, Sedentary Work, and Unemployment.

ERISA disability claims often raise more questions than answers, and the way those questions are resolved can directly determine whether benefits are approved, delayed, or denied. Claimants are frequently left wondering how their past work is evaluated, what really changes when a claim moves from an “own occupation” standard to an “any occupation” standard, and how skills, limitations, or even outside benefits like unemployment factor into the carrier’s decision-making. While these issues may seem secondary, insurers rely on them heavily to assess whether you meet the policy’s definition of disability. In this episode, we unpack the most common questions that come up in ERISA disability claims. We explain how carriers analyze your work history, what they look for when assessing transferable skills, and how physical and mental restrictions are weighed against potential occupations. We also discuss how vocational evidence, functional assessments, and medical documentation are used together, and why gaps, inconsistencies, or vague information can undermine an otherwise valid claim. Additionally, we break down how other benefits and activities can intersect with your ERISA claim and influence how insurers interpret your ability to work. By the end of the episode, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how ERISA carriers evaluate employability, why certain questions are asked during the claims process, and what evidence matters most. More importantly, you’ll learn how understanding these issues can help you better position your claim, avoid common pitfalls, and protect your Long-Term Disability benefits.

In this episode, we'll cover the following topics:

One - The Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Your ERISA Claim

Two - Sedentary Work and Why It Matters

Three - Unemployment Compensation and ERISA Disability

Whether you're a claimant, or simply seeking valuable insights into the disability claims landscape, this episode provides essential guidance to help you succeed in your journey. Don't miss it.


Listen to Our Sister Podcast:

We have a sister podcast - Winning Isn't Easy: Navigating Your Social Security Disability Claim. Give it a listen: https://wiessdpodcast.buzzsprout.com/


Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

LINK TO ROBBED OF YOUR PEACE OF MIND: https://mailchi.mp/caveylaw/ltd-robbed-of-your-piece-of-mind

LINK TO THE DISABILITY INSURANCE CLAIM SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR PROFESSIONALS: https://mailchi.mp/caveylaw/professionals-guide-to-ltd-benefits

FREE CONSULT LINK: https://caveylaw.com/contact-us/


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Need help with your Long-Term Disability or ERISA claim? Have questions? Please feel welcome to reach out to use for a FREE consultation. Just mention you listened to our podcast.

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Please remember that the content shared is for informational purposes only, and should not replace personalized legal advice or guidance from qualified professionals.

Transcript

Nancy Cavey [00:00:00]:
 Foreign. Hey, I'm Nancy Cavey, national ERISA and individual disability attorney. And welcome to Winning Isn't Easy. Before we get started, I've got to give you a legal disclaimer. This podcast is not legal advice, the Florida Bar association says. I've got to tell you this, but nothing will ever prevent me from giving you an easy to understand overview of the disability insurance world, the games the carriers and plans play, and what you need to know to get the disability benefits you deserve. So off we go. ERISA disability benefits can feel overwhelming, and it's natural to have lots of questions.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:00:45]:
 One of the questions might be, well, how is my past work or my past occupation evaluated? What does it mean when the benefits shift from an inability to do my own occupation to an inability to do any occupation? How? How do my skills, my limitations, impact my benefits? These are the kinds of questions that come up every day navigating the ERISA disability claims process. And the answers aren't always obvious. So understanding those can make the difference between having your benefits approved, delayed, or even denied entirely. The truth is that winning an ERISA disability claim is not just about having a medical condition or a diagnosis. It's about how your ability to perform your own occupation or any occupation is evaluated, how how your past experience in your occupations are considered, and how your physical, cognitive, and psychiatric restrictions and limitations are documented. Now, carriers are going to be looking at a wide range of information to make a determination as to your entitlement to benefits. They're going to be looking at your medical records. They're going to be looking at the attending physician statement forms your physicians have filled out.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:01:49]:
 Hopefully, your physicians have filled out residual disability functional capacity forms like the forms we use in a Social Security claim. But they're also going to be looking at your educational background, your work history, and ultimately have a vocational evaluator look at what your occupation was at the time you became disabled, and ultimately whether you're able to do other occupations when the definition of disability changes from an inability to do your own occupation to any occupation? Now, every piece of documentation can affect how your claim is viewed and and every question and answer is really important to the ultimate decision about your entitlement to benefits. In this episode, I'm going to be diving into the questions that matter most for an ERISA disability claim. I'm going to cover, rather, how your work history is evaluated, how your occupation is determined, how they determine whether ultimately, at the any occupation stage, how those skills might or might not transfer to another occupation, the role of your physical cognitive and psychiatric limitations, and how other benefits can interact with your claim. We're going to break down these topics in a way that makes sense and give you a clear picture of what carriers and plans are looking for, why certain questions are asked, and how giving the right answer can help protect your benefits. So by the end of the episode, I want you to feel confident navigating your ERISA disability claim, understanding the key issues that carriers or plans focus on, and what to pay attention to in order to present your claim effectively. So before we dive in, let me summarize what I'm going to be talking about. Number one is the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and your erisa disability claim.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:03:27]:
 2. Sedentary work and why it matters 3. Unemployment compensation and ERISA Disability Benefits let's take a quick break before we get into this episode of Winning Isn't Easy.
 
 Speaker B [00:03:38]:
 Have you been robbed of your peace of mind by your disability insurance carrier? You owe it to yourself to get a copy of Robbed of your peace of Mind, which provides you with everything you need to know about the long term disability claims process. Request your free copy of the book@kvlaw.com today.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:04:13]:
 Welcome back to Winning Isn't Easy. Let's talk about the Dictionary of Occupational Time Vitals and your disability claim. Let's sort of set the stage here. Has your doctor told you that you can't work anymore and suggested that you apply for your ERISA disability or even your Social Security disability benefits? Before you stop work and apply for your benefits, you should understand what it is you have to prove in your ERISA disability case. Just because your doctor says, hey, you can't work anymore doesn't mean you're entitled to your benefits. You have to meet the disability policy or plan requirements and meet the definition of disability and occupation. That leads me to the next topic, the own and any occupation stages of a disability insurance claim. Now, many disability policies or plans will have two types of benefits.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:04:58]:
 The first is called your own occupation and the second is any occupation. The own occupation stage will generally pay two years of benefits if you're unable to do the material and substantial duties of the occupation that you were doing when you became disabled. But when the definition of disability changes to any occupation, the issue becomes whether you're capable of performing any occupation generally in the mythical hypothetical, not real world national economy, in view of your education, your restrictions and limitations and your transferable skills, one of the primary factors at this stage of the case is going to be what your functional, physical, cognitive and psychiatric restrictions limitations and whether or not those Restrictions will erode the ability to take transferable skills, skills you've learned in your past occupations to to other occupations within your residual functional capacity. The Dictionary Occupational Titles is used by the Disability Carrier Plan's vocational evaluator to first determine your past occupation based on the work history forms and information you have given to the disability carrier plan. Then they're going to look at what the restrictions and limitations are that have been assigned. And unfortunately, I have to tell you that rarely does the disability Carrier plan use the restrictions and limitations assigned by your physician. They often have what I call liar for hire. Doctors review your medical records and come up with a very generous set of restrictions and limitations.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:06:27]:
 What the vocational evaluator will do is to use those liar for hire peer review restrictions and limitations, and then doing what's called a transferable skills analysis to determine whether you have skills from your past occupation that could transfer into other occupations and if so, what those occupations might be and depending on the terms of the policy or the plan, what type of wage they might pay. You've heard me use the term Dictionary of Occupational Titles, so let's talk about what that is. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles is published by the United States Department of Labor as a reference guide for jobs in the United States. And the most important pieces of information, the dot, are about the physical demands of each job. Each DOT description has a job title, a brief description of tasks and duties, and a code that refers to the job. The vocational Evaluator will use the DOT to determine your past occupation, the physical strength level it was performed at, and the amount of preparation that it took to learn that particular job. Then, using your RFC as determined by the liar for higher peer review, doctors or plan doctors assess whether you can do other occupations. There are a lot of words I used in this description.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:07:38]:
 I used the words past occupation, which is own occupation, and I used the word any occupation, and I also used the term dot. We may not know exactly how those terms are defined or applied in your case without getting the disability policy or plan. And we want to read it cover to cover. We want to understand what is the definition of occupation. Is it an occupation that you perform for your employer as it's performed in a local economy, as it's performed in the national economy, or perform pursuant to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Now, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles has not been updated. I think probably now in about 40 years. It is, I think, obsolete.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:08:20]:
 I don't think it should be used, but I'm not always in charge of things. I think there are other tools that can be used when the definition changes from an inability to do your own occupation to any occupation. Once again, we need to understand what does that mean? Does that mean in view of your skills, in view of the location that you're at, Is age a factor? And rarely it is. And what do they mean, if anything, by the term transferable skills? And you probably won't see that term there, but that is a process that they're going to be using to determine whether you can do your own occupation, but any occupation. And by that I mean if we're in the own occupation stage, they're going to look at the skills that are required of those occupations and whether those skills have been eroded because of your physical, cognitive or psychiatric restrictions. And if they've been eroded, then they're probably going to look at other occupations or skills that you've had as a result of earlier employment and say, well, this guy's got some skills. He may not be able to do the full range of his occupational duties, but we think that there's something close to his occupation that we can wiggle our way in under the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. And there is a lot of wiggle room in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:09:32]:
 Let's move on to the question of what are skills that you've learned? And transferability. The DoT is going to be used to determine the level and nature of the skills you learned in your former occupation and the specific vocational preparation that was required to learn those skills. Jobs are classified as unskilled, semi skilled or skilled. And the vocational evaluator is going to review your work history, determine what DOT code accurately describes the work that you did. And remember, you've insured a occupation, not necessarily a job. And I think that's a fallacy, quite frankly, of using the dot because the DOT generally does not address occupations, it addresses jobs, jobs within an occupational classification. So the VE is going to start out with here's the occupation. They're going to drill down with the DOT to find a quote unquote job that fits as closely as they can in this occupation and then define it as a job.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:10:30]:
 I think that process is suspect. As you may know, I do a lot of Social Security disability work. And we are fighting tooth and nail at every vocational testimony that's rendered in the course of a hearing because we believe that the vocational evaluators in the context of a Social Security case are using. They're not doing a proper analysis of the occupation. Identifying jobs, identifying other occupations based on hypotheticals given by the Social Security judge. I think the same thing happens in the world of ERISA disability. When I'm looking at one of these cases, I am looking at how they've classified your occupation. Have they identified other quote unquote jobs? How did they determine what your occupation was? Can I fight that? If we're at the own occupation stage, if we're at the any occupation stage, they're going to use a computer program to do this analysis, if you will, of transferable skills and determine whether you can match up with the skill level of the jobs that they identified.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:11:33]:
 What are skills? Well.com kind of define skills as things that you have learned, if you will, job duties as you have learned in the course of doing a particular job. So it might be, for example, as a lawyer, I have learned I have the skills in terms of the ability to read and understand information, organize information. I have the ability to master data, deal with people and things. I can make a argument in a particular case by writing and by doing an oral presentation. So there are skills that I have learned as a result of my occupation as an attorney. Now, the DOT classifies jobs, as I said, based on unskilled, semi skilled or skilled work. And semi skilled work is work that requires basic training or experience and can be learned in three to six months, such as operating a machine, assembly work, or routine tasks requiring both hands and feet. Semi skilled workers can perform job duties without supervisors help and don't require specialized training.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:12:33]:
 If your work is classified by the Carrier vocational Evaluator as semi skilled, the question then becomes whether your residual functional capacity, your physical, cognitive and psychiatric limitations, allows you to transfer those skills to other occupations. For example, if you're a machine operator, can you transfer those skills to assembly work? If you're an attorney, can you transfer those skills to being a paralegal? That's important. Now, skilled work requires training and education in a particular field through formal education or on the job training, such as being an attorney. That skilled work involves complex tasks, making difficult decisions. And my work under the DOT is classified as skilled because my work requires advanced education, specific skills. As I've said, analyzing facts, presenting arguments, negotiating, dealing with clients, the higher the skills often mean fewer transferable skills. You know, I would argue that I don't necessarily have the skills to be a paralegal just because I'm a lawyer. I think the skill set is completely different.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:13:35]:
 But again, these are the kinds of games that are played by disability carriers and their vocational evaluators. In the analysis of your occupation, any occupation, transferable skills, identifying other work, identifying through a job labor market survey whether the jobs are available and the amount of money that they pay. You can see here at A working knowledge of the dot, residual functional capacities, transferable skills, and an understanding of the tools that vocational evaluators use and the mistakes that they make is really crucial. We've covered that topic and I want you to remember that if you have gotten a denial letter saying, you know, we think you can do your own occupation, or we think you can do other work in the national economy based on the definition of other work in the policy or plan, you're only going to have 180 days in which to file an appeal and that appeal is the trial of your case. One of the things that we do in the course of writing a winning appeal letter is to take that vocational aspects of that denial apart, looking for mistakes they made in applying the definitions of own occupation, any occupation, occupation transferable skills, we look to see if the policy addresses the methodology by which they are supposed to be determining your functional restrictions and limitations. And of course, we're looking at the policy or plan to understand if there is a wage requirement in the policy or plan that says, hey, any other work that you identified, any other occupations has to meet a certain financial threshold. Generally it's 80% of your pre disability wages. So we are taking this whole thing apart and analyzing the many mistakes that vocational evaluators will make.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:15:22]:
 Not an easy process, but one that has to be done within that 180 day appeal period. And as a result, we do consult with our own experienced vocational evaluators who will help us take apart this bogus opinion that you can do your own occupation from a vocational standpoint, or you can do any occupation based on their analysis of your residual functional capacity, an analysis of your past work and skills you've learned, an analysis of other work that may not really exist or not really meet the financial requirements of the policy of the plan. Got it. Let's take a break. Welcome back to Winning Isn't Easy Sedentary Work and why It Matters in your ERISA disability Claim. I'm often asked by clients, well, look, I can't do the kind of work or occupation I was doing when I applied for my ERISA disability benefits and they're paying me my benefits. But what happens when that definition of disability changes from an inability to do my own occupation to an inability to do any occupation? And why is the ability or inability to do sedentary work so important? Well, let me explain. Even if you can't perform your past occupation.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:16:41]:
 You have to meet the policy or plan's definition of any occupation. And again, we've got to go back to that disability policy or plan and understand what that definition is. But I will tell you as a practical matter, the game that the disability carrier is engaging in at the any occupation stage is to have their liar for hire doctors say that you are capable of doing sedentary work. And then ultimately they're going to say that and identify some sedentary occupations and say, hey, you're not disabled anymore, because while you can't do your past occupation, you can do any occupation. So what on earth is sedentary work? Sedentary work involves lifting no more than £10 at a time, occasionally lifting or carrying articles or items like files, ledgers, small tools, sitting for a total of six out of eight hours in a workday, and occasionally walking and standing for up to two hours per day. Your occupation was sedentary to begin with. You have to prove that you can't perform the sedentary aspects, material, and substantial duties of that sedentary occupation to win your own occupation benefits. But for most people, they're really not engaged in a sedentary occupation.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:17:53]:
 When that claim moves from own occupation to any occupation, the question becomes, can you perform at least a sedentary occupation? Now, if your occupation was sedentary and now you're in the any occupation stage, we have to prove that you can't potentially do sedentary work or even the full range of sedentary work. So we're in that sedentary work game field. Let's talk about what are some of the physical conditions that would prevent you from doing sedentary work? Well, there can be limits on lifting or carrying, limits on standing or walking, limits on sitting, the requirement to elevate a leg, the requirement to use medical devices, the need to alternate between sitting and standing, having to rest or lie down during the day, fine motor and gross motor limitations with your hands and missing at least two works, work days per month, and being off task at least 20% of the workday. So you can think of medical conditions that could ideally naturally result in an inability to do sedentary work. Think about cardiac conditions, back problems, shoulder problems, hand problems. It might be that you have problems with Ehlers Danlos. It might be problems with fibromyalgia. It might be problems with fatigue.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:19:09]:
 Secondary to ME cfs. There's a whole gambit of medical conditions that I believe have significant physical and cognitive restrictions and limitations that can be used to erode or limit a person's ability to do sedentary work. And that's the strategy here, particularly at the any occupation stage. Obviously there are mental conditions that prevent sedentary work. It might be that you are not able to do routine tasks, concentrate, maintain the pace of production, follow instructions, deal with changes in the workplace, or having problems interacting with the public, co workers or supervisors. Many conditions like bipolar anxiety, depression or panic attacks can impact the ability to perform a sedentary job or occupation. But let me caution you about that. Many times in disability insurance policies or plans, there is a two year limitation on what's called mental nervous conditions or subjective medical conditions.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:20:09]:
 And subjective doesn't necessarily mean what you think. You've got to get out that policy or plan and see what's in that laundry list. They may classify headaches, migraines, pains, spasm, all sorts of common disabling symptoms as being excluded for consideration. The mental nervous policy limitation comes in two forms. There's the form that says if your disability is caused by a mental condition, as defined by the policy of the plan, benefits are limited to just two years. Now, if you have a back condition, you probably are depressed. We want to prove that it's not the depression that is causing your inability to do any occupation, but rather the sequelae of your back problems. However, there is that other version of the mental nervous policy limitation and what I call the Monty Python wafer thin mental nervous policy limitation.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:20:59]:
 And that one says if your inability to work, your disability, in other words, as defined by the terms of the policy of the plan, contribute ever so slightly, 0.10% benefits are limited to just two years. Now this becomes important even as we are addressing the inability to do sedentary work. As part of that analysis, we're going to be parsing and the carrier and plan is going to be parsing your medical records and saying, okay, well, we've got a mental nervous policy limitation that Monty Python one that Nancy Cavey always talks about. So we're going to take away any mental conditions and we're not going to consider them. By the way, this policy has a subjective medical condition limitation. And fibromyalgia or migraines are considered to be subjective. Benefits are limited to two years. So we have to sweep out of the analysis the fibromyalgia or the migraines, leaving us with whatever medical conditions are left to determine whether you can do sedentary work or less than the full range of sedentary work.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:21:57]:
 So how is the disability carrier going to go about doing this well, they're going to start out by looking at your medical records. They've looked at the policy, they understand what the policy limitations are. And now they're going to look at those medical records and and call through the conditions that are excluded or limited. They're going to look then at your symptoms and your functionality, objective testing, progress notes, treatment responses and compliance. They're also going to be looking at the attending physician statement forms that your physician has completed. I like Social Security residual functional capacity forms. We Social Security lawyers have developed over 75 medical condition forms that can demonstrate how the physical, cognitive or psychiatric restrictions interfere not only with your ability to do pass work, but erode your ability to do sedentary work. So when we find ourselves in a situation where the disability carrier is denying or terminating benefits on the basis that a person can do any occupation, we are going to be analyzing the policy, analyzing the medical records, and hopefully have residual functional capacity forms that address the restrictions and limitations and give us good medical arguments to rebut the liar for hire peer review doctor's assessment of your restrictions and limitations.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:23:10]:
 But in turn we're going to take apart their vocational analysis in quotes and the basis of their denial from a vocational standpoint. We will hire a vocational evaluator for the purposes of reviewing your file, the relevant portions of your medical records, the carrier's analysis of your restrictions, our physicians analysis of your restrictions, the vocational evaluator's opinions, and I'm going to have the vocational evaluator attack the analysis and the methodology that their ve used in quotes to arrive at a conclusion that you could do other occupations. You can see that this is very strategic. It flows from the policy, flows from the medical records, flows from an analysis of the denial letter, and then the implementation of a strategy to address all of the reasons why the carrier of the plan is wrong. Please remember you only have 180 days in which to file an appeal if your claim has been denied or benefits have been terminated, and that appeal is the trial of your case. Once the appeal process has ended, you can't add new information unless the court grants the ability to add new information, like maybe a Social Security decision. A judge, if this goes that far, is going to be looking at what's in the carrier's file at the time of that last denial. That analysis that I just outlined can't be done after the fact.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:24:31]:
 It has to be done as part of the appeal process. So hopefully you now understand the role of sedentary work in a claims denial at not only the own occupation stage, but more importantly, at the any occupation stage. Let's take a break.
 
 Speaker B [00:24:47]:
 Are you a professional with questions about your individual disability policy? You need the Disability Insurance Claim Survival Guide for Professionals. This book gives you a comprehensive understanding of your disability policy with tips and to dos that will assist you in submitting a winning disability application. This is one you don't want to miss. For the next 24 hours, we are giving away free copies of the Disability Insurance Claim Survival Guide for Professionals. Order yours today@disabilityclaimsforprofessionals.com.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:25:36]:
 Welcome back to Winning Isn't Easy Unemployment Compensation and your ERISA Disability Claim I'm often asked, can I collect unemployment compensation benefits or state disability benefits while I'm applying for my ERISA short term disability benefits? If you stop work and apply for your benefits, there might be a period of time in which you can't collect benefits. Normally, what will happen is in a short term disability context, that might be one week. But when you roll into long term disability coverage, if you have purchased that, there is something called an elimination period. And they can be 60 days, 90 days, 120 days. I've even seen one as long as a year. And that means generally that you have to be unable to work during this entire elimination period. But again, that is policy specific, so you have to take a look at the language of your policy or plan. As a rule, unemployment benefits are not used to reduce short term disability benefits, but sometimes they are used to reduce long term disability benefits.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:26:39]:
 As I said, that's a general rule. But that may not be the case in your particular situation because the policy or plan may say something else. That's why I harp on getting the policy or plan. I want to contrast, if you will, unemployment and ERISA disability benefits. Unemployment benefits require that you be willing and able to work. On the other hand, ERISA disability benefits generally require that you can't work in your own occupation. Now, being disabled doesn't mean that you aren't willing to work. You're just unable to work full time and still qualify for benefits.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:27:12]:
 So how do disability carriers or plans look at a situation where you've applied for unemployment and you're collecting it? Because, after all, you can't financially afford to go without some form of income while you're waiting out the elimination period. So here's some of the things that carriers will say to me. Ms. Kavey we think that the unemployment benefits are a bar to the claim because there's a conflict in your client saying that they are willing and able to work, to collect unemployment and this application that says they're disabled and unable to work. And so again, I say, wait a second, there's a difference. My client may be willing and able to try to work, but they can't work on a full time basis, which is the criteria for this particular definition of disability. Now, that's not always the definition. Sometimes even if you can work in some capacity, you're not entitled to your disability benefits.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:28:06]:
 So I'm trying to address the fact that being willing to attempt to work doesn't mean that my client isn't disabled. Number two, some will review jobs that you've applied for while collecting unemployment and argue that the jobs that you've applied for were easier than your past occupation and therefore that's proof that you are capable of working. Again, we're going to attack that on the basis that an application doesn't necessarily mean that a person is going to be hired. It means that they're willing to attempt a job, but they were never offered a job. Others may ignore the whole unemployment application process together, but say, hey, by the way, in our disability insurance policy or plan, any source of income that you receive, such as unemployment, is going to be used to reduce the amount of your benefits. In the offset provisions of the policy, there might be the ability of the disability carrier plan to reduce your benefits by unemployment on a dollar for dollar basis. You can hear here that it's really crucial that you understand the policy terms and proof requirements that we review and improve medical records, that you have the assistance of an attorney such as myself to submit an application, and if the claim is denied or benefits are terminated, to file an appeal, if necessary, of course, to litigate a claim. If your claim has been denied or benefits have been terminated, please remember you've only got that 180 days in which to file the appeal, which is the trial of your case.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:29:35]:
 And I would strongly suggest to you that if you get an inkling, a feeling, a suspicion that your benefits are going to be denied or terminated, or you're approaching that change in disability standard from inability to do your own occupation to any occupation, it's time for you to consult with an experienced service and disability attorney to consult with them about the terms of the policy, develop a strategy in anticipation of that denial or termination of benefits so that you, if you will, are ready to file an appeal if that happens, and you've got a leg up, if you will, a heads up, if you will, in developing the necessary medical and vocational evidence to rebut a wrongful denial or termination of your claim. Got it. That's a wrap on today's episode of Winning Isn't Easy. We've answered some questions that I think are important to Arista disability policyholders and plan beneficiaries about work history, sedentary work, and how some benefits can interact with your claim, resulting in a reduction in your benefits. Knowing these answers ahead of time will help you navigate the process and protect the benefits you deserve. So thanks for tuning in to this week's episode Winning Isn't Easy. If you found this episode helpful, please take a moment to like our page, leave a review, share it with your family and friends, and subscribe please to this podcast. I would love to hear from you because at the beginning of each episode description you'll find a link where you can send us questions or comments and we featured them today in this episode.
 
 Nancy Cavey [00:31:06]:
 So please reach out to us and join us next week for another insightful discussion of Winning Isn't Easy. Thanks for listening.