How to Win your Disability Case | The Disability Benefits Podcast #28

In this episode, we go over doctor's support, and what to do if they won't fill out a form to help your case.

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Disability Consulting, LLC
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Disclaimer: We are a non-attorney firm. Our company specializes in representation for Social Security disability claims and is not a law office. The information provided in this video is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For legal guidance specific to your situation, please consult a licensed attorney.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

All right. Well, for this episode, I'm going to let you kind of steer the boat and give us uh three tips for how to win your disability case.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

All right. These aren't the only tips, but if I was to put them on a totem pole, they'd be at the tipper toppermost. So the number one tip is to get in and stay in regular treatment. If you have a back disorder or really any kind of orthopedic disorder, you need to be seeing somebody and telling them I have difficulties standing, I have difficulties walking, have difficulties lifting and carrying. You know, if you have some, you know, um carpal tunnel or some other kind of you know peripheral neuropathy, you know, this messing with your hands and your feet, you need to talk to your doctor about, listen, I'm, you know, I'm having difficulties buttoning my shirt, you know, I'm having difficulty zipping up my pants, tying my shoes. Um treatment, treatment, treatment, and we've talked about this before. The way that we win a disability case is by citing the treatment records. You know, Mr. Jones says that he's disabled because of degenerative dyst disease in his lumbar spine. The medical record shows that, you know, Mr. Jones has been showing to his doctor, you know, you know, five or six times a year for the last couple years, complaining of problems standing and walking, lifting and carrying, and that, you know, if he does, you know, walk for more than 20 minutes at a time, he's on the couch for the next three hours. Medical records show that? Yeah, medical records show that. And the x-ray that they get shows moderate to severe degenerative disc disease at you know, L4, L5, S1, which are the your vertebrae. Yeah. Um, or it might be in your cervical spine, you know, and then you have problems with your upper extremities. But um, those kinds of things, you know, if I can find them in the case record, that's my proof. I, you know, in fact, a lot of the judges, when they ask me to present a case, they'll say something along the lines of, Mr. Groves, put on your proof. And that's that means for me, okay, I'm gonna probably give you an opening statement of why I believe you know my client is disabled, and then I'm gonna cite the medical records that I I feel support that. And if there's an opinion in the file, you know, you know, Dr. Jones's, you know, uh, or Mr. Jones's doctor, Dr. Smith, um, you know, finds that he would not be able to, you know, lift and carry more than 10 pounds. He wouldn't be able to be on his feet for very long. And if you add everything up, he wouldn't even be able to make it through an eight-hour workday. And we find, Your Honor, that this, you know, this demonstrates that that you know, my client is disabled. Um, here's a uh a lumbar x-ray from such and such date. Um, I'm just I'm putting on the proof, I'm citing the evidence, which I believe supports um my client not being able to work. Mental health, no different whatsoever. No difference whatsoever. They've been going to a therapist, you know, five or six times a year. They go in there and they talk about how they're having problems uh with concentration, they're having problems staying on tasks, they're having problems, you know, being around other people. They have um really kind of been ostracized from their family because they've, you know, they're irrationally irritable, you know. They're their family don't want to be around them. Why are you angry all the time? I don't know why I'm angry all the time. Well, why did you lash out at me? I don't know why I lashed out at you. I it's part of the disease. Um, anxiety attack. How many anxiety attacks, you know, uh are you having? And the medical records show that you're having an anxiety attack, you know, once or twice a week. Do you think you could work with with an anxiety attack happening once or twice a week? Nope. I wouldn't hire you, sorry. You know, not if you're having you know that. You're first of all, you're gonna be out of the out of pocket for a while. And my client, my uh other employees that see it, that's it's kind of a traumatic thing to witness. Or, you know, God forbid, the customers coming in, the general public coming in, yeah, and they see you, you know, have an anxiety attack, you know, it reflects poorly on my business. And what would happen? Boss is gonna fire you. Um, so number one on the totem pole, way at the tip or toppermost, is getting in regular treatment and staying in regular treatment. Now, we always get pushback on this from our clients who don't have money, or they live out in a rural area and they can't get to a facility or treatment that's near them. It's just, you know, they or they don't have transportation. And as cold and heartless as it is for me to say this, and I don't mean to be cold or heartless, just because you can't does not at all alter the fact that Social Security expects you to. So if you don't have any money, health departments. Most states will have some kind of mental health program if you don't have any money that you can get in some kind of treatment. Um, health departments, they're probably not going to buy x-rays for you because you know they don't they don't like spending money at all. But at least you'll we'll have some kind of record that you've gone in and you've complained about your conditions. Um we have to have something. And again, as heartless and cold as it sounds for me to say this, and I'm just speaking from 35 years of experience, judges don't care. Yeah, I mean they might care, care, but from a legal standpoint, we are expected to prove your case. They haven't been in treatment for two years, Mr. Groves. Can you explain that? Well, they live out they live out in the boonies. They haven't been in treatment for two years, Mr. Groves. Can you explain that? Well, they don't have transportation. What is the proof that I need to look at to favorably decide your client's case, Mr. Groves? And what am I gonna do? I you know that that's when you when I drop my head. I'm like, you know. And so I I understand that there are going to be times when you can't do that, but it'll it'll really, really serve you if you realize that Social Security they're just not gonna take that as an excuse. Well, I don't have money, I don't have transportation, you know, I live away out. I, you know. Okay, you know. And their their position is this, and I'll I'll end my number one with this. Their position is oh, so you're disabled. And the definition of disability for this program is you're unable to do any kind of work on a sustained basis, and this condition you have is gonna stand gonna last at least twelve consecutive months, or it's gonna result in your death. That's really severe. Can you explain to me if your condition is that severe, why aren't you seeing anybody? And you I'm sorry, you know, transportation, I live out in the boonies, I don't have money, those will go nowhere in your disability case. And again, it might sound heart heartless and it might sound cold, but it's just the truth.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Yeah, because they are those are good reasons just in general, if we're just being rational. I mean, if you don't have transportation, you don't have money, and you don't have insurance. Right in general, if we were just talking, you know, friend to friend, that yeah, that makes sense. So it is a good reason, but it's it's not gonna it's not gonna cut it for your social security case. Yeah, they're not gonna look at that and be like, oh, okay, well then because there's nothing there's nothing else. If they don't use the medical evidence, what are they gonna use? You know, there's really you can have um you you can have an MSS that has to be from from the provider, and then you can have the medical records themselves that have to be from the provider, but it all has to point toward what's actually going on here.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Yeah, and then another thing, um what you were saying is uh uh regular treatment. Keyword there is regular, or keyword is ongoing treatment. I talked to a lot of clients that they stopped working uh say two years ago, a year ago or two years ago, um, and they were telling me about degenerative disc disease is one of the main things keeping them out of work, um, you know, arthritis in their in their knees, maybe they had like a rotator cuff um surgery, torn rotator cuff, but they had these surgeries like in the 90s. Sure. You know, they had these surgeries 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Um we're not really interested in that because if you have a if you have a surgery, say you're unable to work in 1999 and you have a surgery for it, and then you work from 2001 to 2021, you've already proven that you weren't disabled in that period. That's right. Because if you were disabled, you want to be working full-time. And so on.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

You had that condition, but it wasn't disabled.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Exactly. So ongoing treatment, we say that specifically because if if you don't have treatment now, you really can't supplement that for treatment that you had five years ago or ten years ago. It needs to actually be relevant for your case.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Right. Absolutely. Yeah, it's um yeah, it's just uh ongoing treatment. It's almost damaging to your case to have you saw a doctor suspiciously a month after you signed with disability consulting. For the first time in six years. Yeah. And then and then since that time, to the time the case has wended its way through an initial denial and we appealed it, and a reconsideration denial, and we appealed it now in front of a judge. And the judge is looking at it and said, Okay, well, you didn't have any treatment for about five years. You signed with this firm, you know, about 14 months ago. Where's the treatment since that 14 months ago? One visit you made. Um and it's happened, you know, and it doesn't it doesn't embarrass me, it makes me sad for my client, but they'll say something like, Well, Mr. Groves told me when I first, you know, signed with with his firm that I had to get treatment, so you know I went in and saw my doctor. But but did you continue? No, I don't have any money, or you know, I don't have any transportation, or you well, you had something that you went there and you had that one visit, and now what it looks like is you know, maybe you were trying to not deceive Social Security, but you're trying to check a box and that's it. I'm okay got I had my one visit, you know, because my my representative told me I had to. What about your health condition? Wouldn't it make more sense? Like because of my health condition, I've been seeing this doctor, you know, you know, once every two months or whatever. But yeah, yeah, it's um ongoing treatment, tipper topper of the totem pole. That's that's the number one thing that is gonna help um help you and me win your case.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, and then real quick, and then I'll let you get to the second thing. Um for mental health, telehealth is huge.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Over the phones. A lot of people think, you know, you can't you can't use your transportation excuse if it's telehealth anyway. You know, a lot of people think that, well, I got to get referred to this psychologist and I gotta drive 15 miles. It's like there's a lot of free mental health um treatment in most states.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

And they'll call yeah, they'll call in your prescriptions to a really local, a really close um drugstore to you. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

So telehealth totally counts. Sure. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Absolutely. It's treatment. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

All right. What's number two?

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Number two is right below treatment is a cooperative spirit. And that doesn't mean that I need I want you to be, you know, full of sunshine and butterflies, but it does mean that if I or the Social Security Administration ask you to do something, you're gonna cooperate with it. The kinds of things that I'm gonna ask you to do is go to and stay in treatment. I'm gonna ask you to, you know, keep in regular contact with me. We're gonna reach out to you regularly, but I love it when my clients call me. I know a lot of firms don't, but that's not me. Um keeping in contact with me. If we ask you, um, you know, you know, just talk to your doctor and see if he'll get a medical source statement. Cooperate with us on that. Um and we've talked about trusting the process. Absolutely, you know, trust us. We've we've been doing this a long, long time. We win a lot of cases, and there is a reason that we win these cases. It's you know, if you trust us and you do what we ask you to do, your chances skyrocket of winning. And cooperating with Social Security. We've seen this in the last, well, basically since COVID, so the last five years or so, that it's absolutely become an epidemic. It's a horrible, horrible problem. And that is I'm not gonna fill out any forms. What? No, I just want I don't want to fill out any forms. Okay. I'm not gonna go to the exam that Social Security is scheduled for me. What why, why, why aren't you doing? I just don't feel like doing that. You know, I've told them I'm disabled, and doggone it, they just gotta believe me. Really? I mean, do you operate with that kind of naivety in the rest of your life? No, you would never expect that from somebody else. Why are you expecting Social Security uh to take your word for it? You gotta prove your case. That's just the way the program was designed. And cooperating means I'm gonna send in the forms, and we're gonna talk about that because number three is that. I'm gonna send in the forms. I'm gonna send them in when they tell me I have tell me I have to. You know, they give me a deadline. Um, I'm not gonna drag my feet. And let me give you another kind of hard, cold um fact. Social security guys and gals who are assessing your case. If you don't fill out your forms or you never answer your phone, this is what they're thinking. Well, my goodness, this guy who's disabled, never at home. This guy who's disabled, I don't know what else he's got to do, but he obviously has no time to fill out these forms. And that's what they're thinking. You know, never answers his phone. Where where is he? Where's you know, why is he never at home if he's disabled? What do you mean he can't fill out his form? What else has he got to do? He's not working. That's what they're thinking. Um, fill out the forms, fill them out timely. If they ask you to go to a consultative exams exam, they're gonna pay for it. All you gotta do is get there. And here's another silly thing about that. If you don't have any transportation and you have to pay somebody to take you, they'll actually pay you back for the mileage. It's uh they make it about as easy on a claimant as they possibly can. And so it's baffling to me when so many of our clients they just drop off the face of the earth, yeah, they don't answer the phone, they don't fill out any forms, they don't go do the exams, and then they call us up five months later, and we've been trying to get them weekly, and they don't answer the phone, and they call us five months later, you know, what's what's happening with my case? Well, it was denied four months ago. What? Yeah, yeah. You didn't you didn't call anybody, you didn't answer your phone, you know, you didn't do this, you didn't, you know, yeah, it's been denied, you know. Yeah, you don't have a case. Oh, well, you know, Mr. Groves, well, you know, well, let's just start another one. Well, you can start another one. But I'm not going to help you with it because you know, I I have to pay my people to call you, to send letters, I have to pay them no matter what, whether you're answering or not. And I just I'm not gonna do that over and over again. So, and good luck with another firm because you know they're rarely as um on top of things as we are, and they're gonna be even less uh understanding about why you're not answering the phone or why you're not cooperating with Social Security. Um, so that's number two. Right underneath having ongoing regular treatment is cooperation, a spirit of cooperation.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah, I I spoke to a client or I signed a client um a few days ago, and he had he had just started his case, so he was in the stage where they just sent him all the forms to fill out, right? And he was telling me that he hasn't gotten around to it yet because one of the main things keeping him out of work is his vision problems. Um I think he's a type one diabetic. Um I don't know if it's retinopathy or if it's a completely different vision thing, but anyway, he has some real trouble viewing the forms, looking, you know, reading the forms. And I was listening to that and I told him after I got everything we needed. I was I was like, hey man, this is gonna be cutthroat and you have a good reason for it, but if you don't fill those forms out um on the at the time that they told you that you know, you don't adhere to the deadline, they will probably just deny your case. You know, you're telling me that you have vision problems, that you have a hard time reading and filling out the forms. I totally get that. I believe you about your vision problems. That's partially why I took the case. Um Social Security is just gonna they're just gonna deny it if you don't fill it out on time. And so, yeah, just to your point about multiple other things we've talked about, it sounds cutthroat, but even you know, get someone to help you fill it out. At the end of the day, it's if if you if you can't read it, yeah, just get someone to help you out. Um or if it takes a little bit longer and you have to use a magnifying glass, you know, it sounds ridiculous, but you can't you can't take three months to fill out a form that they gave you like a week or two for.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

And and just like that they'll pay for the exam they want to send you to, and just like that they're you know, they're gonna do all uh pretty much as much as they legally can to help you. If you have told them that you have horrible vision problems, they do have a system which prints these forms, and I'm not joking, you know, normal eight and a half by eleven, it'll be it'll look like a scroll. Yeah. You know, like Moses coming down off the mountain. It's a big scroll, and the the print is like, you know, 18 font, you know, most prints 12, but 18 or 25, it's huge. And they'll send you the forms in this big, big paper with big, big print. Um, once again, they're probably going to remove any excuse you have, you know, and that's you know, that's something that we don't we haven't really talked about. You know, there's a difference between reasons and excuses. Yeah. And you know, reasons are usually justified, and you know, you're you're possibly going to get some grace for those. Excuses, on the other hand, are gonna go nowhere with anybody, not gonna go anywhere with my firm. They're certainly not gonna go anywhere with Social Security. You know, you know, there are good reasons, and then there are I'm you're just making an excuse. Yeah. Um, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

So a good example of a reason for missing your appeal deadline if you were denied and you missed the appeal deadline. You're in jail, that's a good one. Would be yeah, you were incarcerated, or you had a third heart attack and you were actually hospitalized.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

And there and Social Security would absolutely go with that. They'd be f they'd be fine with that. And so would we, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

That that's a reason. And an excuse would be you had nothing to do, you were just watching TV, and you just oh, I just didn't get around to it. Haven't gotten around to it yet, and it's been three months.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

Or I expected my rep to fill out all my forms. Yeah. We don't we don't do that. Yeah. So that's my clever segue into number three. Okay. Third down from the totem pole. So the first one, regular, ongoing treatment. Second one, a spirit of cooperation. You know, you're applying for disability, let's go through the process. Don't don't just, you know, roll your eyes at it. The third one, though, is remember that you are applying for disability and not ability. And that's extremely important for you to remember because when you do fill out these forms, these forms they're not designed to trick you, but they do ask questions about what you can do. And so if you are talking to somebody at Social Security, even a judge when we get that far, and they're asking you about household chores, and you tell them, well, yeah, you know, I can do household chores. I do oh, okay. Well, what about lawn work? Yeah, yeah, I I you know, I I can mow. Oh, oh, okay. What about paying bills and you know staying on top of you know your household finances? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do that. I'm waiting for something that shows that you're disabled because the things that you Telling me or telling Social Security are not indicative of somebody who's disabled. They're indicative of somebody who's got ability. We're not applying for ability, we're applying for disability. So it is imperative that you talk about your limitations. You talk about your limitations with me and my staff so we know exactly what's going on. And when I get in front of a judge, I can basically tell your story for you. You talk about your limitations to your doctors so that when we read the medical records, you know, we don't say, you know, he has no problem doing household chores, doing the yard work, he has no problems doing household finances. No, you tell your doctor about your limitations. And then when we get in front of a judge, you tell the judge about your limitations, and you don't testify that you're able to do everything. The forms that you fill out, and we've talked about this before, the forms that you fill out early in the process, and you got to fill them out, again, cooperation, the forms that you fill out early in the process are just like sworn testimony when we go in front of the judge. So on a form, if you said, you know, well, I can fill, you know, I can feed my dogs, you know, I have some horses on my property, and I'm able to tend to them and brush them, and you know, and I walk them around the track, and I do this, and I do that, and I do this, and I do that, and blah, blah, blah, blah. You do, you can, you are, you're doing, you and that form, and then you get in front of a judge, I can't do nothing. Well, the judge is gonna say, Well, Mr. Jones, you know, about 18 months ago you filled out this form, and you told me on this form that you take care of your horses. You still taking care of the horses? Well Well, yeah. Okay. You told me that you can feed other pets like your dogs and stuff like that. You still got those dogs? Yeah. You feeding them? Well, not always, but yeah, I try. And all of a sudden, he's basically just testing you. You know, are you gonna tell me today in the hearing the same stuff you told me when you filled out this form? Um and and either either way, it's horrible. So if they don't match, so early on, I can't do nothing. You know, I can't, I can't feed my pets, I can't do my wife's angry with me because I can't do any kind of household chores, and I can't be on my feet more than five minutes at a time, da da da da da da da da. And it might all be true. And then for some reason you get in front of a judge, and well, yeah, if I push myself, I could probably stand or walk for you know three or four hours. If I push myself. Well, yeah. And you just lost because you told them that you couldn't do anything back here, and then you get to a hearing and you told them, yeah, you could do it if you had to, or vice versa. Babe, way back in the forum, you said you could do all these things, but then you get in front of a judge. I can't do nothing. They need to be uniform. And the way that you do that is just remember what you're there for. We're applying for disability. So you don't want to put on a show. What I mean by that is you don't want to exaggerate, you don't want, you certainly don't want to lie. Um, you don't want to make things look uh worse than they actually are. You don't want to make them look better than they actually are. You want them to look like they actually are. Can you feed your pets? No, no. I forget all the time. You know, my kids, my adult kids, you know, are just getting on me because you know the dog's always mad because I haven't fed him. Okay, all right. Are you able to I heard you had some horses on your property, you know? Are you able to take care of them? I had to sell them. You know, I I couldn't take care of them anymore. That's what a disabled person would say. Well, but what about household chores? You know, something easy. You're standing at the sink, you're washing a few dishes. Standing at a sink? I can't stand for more than five minutes at a time. I might be able to wash one dish and then I gotta go sit down for half an hour. That's what a disabled person would say. What about something really, really difficult indoors like laundry? Are you kidding me? Laundry. I couldn't do laundry if I had to. One, I couldn't concentrate to stay on it and it would sour. You know, if if I was even able to get it into the dryer, I probably wouldn't turn the dirt dryer on because my mind's somewhere else. That's what a disabled person would say. And you put that kind of stuff on a form early on, and then you get in front of a judge and you basically say the same thing, and it doesn't have to be exact, but you're saying the same thing. Well, that is what a disabled person would say. And that's what you're, you know, that's what I'm expecting as your representative, and that's certainly what Social Security is expecting. They're not expecting to see some kinds of form filling out that you can do everything, you know, I can cook, I can clean, I can drive, I can shop, I can do household chores without any kind of problems. Well, why are you disabled then? Yeah, you sound fine. Yeah, they're they're not expecting to see that, they're expecting to see your limitations. And that's what I want to just impart on you for this number three. Make sure that the Social Security Administration at every level, and so if they send you a form on the initial level, and then they send you the same darn thing on the reconsideration level, guess what? I'm gonna advise you to do fill it out. Please fill it out the same way. I mean, make sure that the stuff is the same, unless it's changed. Um, and then when we get in front of a judge, you know, I'm gonna read those forms and I'll probably remind you of them before the before the hearing, about a week before the hearing. Hey, just remember on your form you said da-da-da-da-da. Is that still the way it is, or has something changed? And if something's changed, you know, we want to tell the judge that because you know we want to be honest. But if it hadn't changed, make sure that you tell the judge the same thing that you you put on your form, you know, 14, 16, 18 months ago when the case was still at one of the lower levels. Um, we are applying for disability. I expect to hear things out of you, I expect to see forms from you that indicate you are disabled.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah, I think it stumps a lot of clients uh when we're talking about the activities of daily living, because what they're expecting when they apply for disability is just directly their medical stuff. I have arthritis, if my knees hurt, and then you hit them with, you know, can you do laundry? Can you wash dishes? A lot of times that stumps them. They're just they don't expect you to have to talk about that. But that's exactly what you need to talk about because we're you're not just getting approved because you have arthritis, and you're not just getting approved because your knees hurt, you're getting approved because your symptoms are preventing you from being able to do these um daily chores. And what you've talked about before is we wouldn't really we wouldn't be able to ask a client or social security would not really be able to ask a claimant um how well they're able to work because they're not working. And so we substitute that. How are how well able or how well are you able to do daily chores?

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Um because that's as close as we're gonna get. If you're not working, um we're we're gonna try to get you know daily activities, which are tasks that pretty much every household um is responsible for. And of course you're not gonna be able to do everything um that the way you used to. You know, I I always tell my clients, I said, you know, make sure that you let your providers know, make sure that you let Social Security know that if you do chores and you do tasks that you used to do, you don't do them as quickly as you used to, you don't do them as completely or accurately as you used to, and then there are those some things that you just can't do. My adult son has to do it for me, or I have a neighbor who is, you know, has a heart of gold and they come over twice a week and they're able to do this because I can't do it at all. That's what disabled people say. Yeah. Um, you know, I don't do it as good as I used to, I don't do it as quickly as I used to, and then there are some things I can't do at all. Well, if you were to just translate all of that into work activity, I don't do it as good as I used to. Okay. All right, so what you're saying is that you're not accurate and you're gonna be making some mistakes. Bosses will allow that for maybe a few hours and then you won't be coming back tomorrow. I don't do it as quickly as I used to do. Well, every job on planet Earth, every single one, has an expected pace to it. I expect you in eight hours to complete eight hours worth of work, and I'm the one as the boss or the employer or the business, I'm the one who has done the research to say this is what eight hours should be able to accomplish. You well, wait a minute, you don't do things as quickly as you used to? No, no, it would take me twice as long. Okay, well, you're fired. That's a problem. That's right, you're fired, and then there are some things I can't do at all. Okay, well, when a boss finds out that there are some things that he's hired you to do and you can't do them, guess what? Once again, you're fired. Um, you are disabled. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

Yeah, I I had a person comment on one of our videos, I don't remember what video it was, but they said that um they went a year without doing laundry because it was so difficult for them to do laundry. Yeah. And a lot of people would probably read that and ask, like, what on earth does that have to do with a disability case? That has everything to do with a disability case.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

Yeah. Yeah, and um, you know, it's not just you know, reps like me being clever and stuff like that. If I wasn't to say a word in a hearing, if I wasn't to ask you about anything, guarantee that the judge is going to ask you about cooking, cleaning, shopping, driving, laundry, you know, pretty much any household chore. Can you do some light dusting? Can you do sweeping? What about mopping? You know, who does your dishes if you're not allowed to do dishes? If I don't don't ask those questions, I can guarantee you the judge is going to because exactly what you said. Since they don't have any kind of work activity you're doing, they're going to get as close as they can and activities of daily living, daily household chores that whether you do them or not, they're expected in all households. You know, if you live in a place that has a kitchen, um it's expected that you're gonna have some dirty dishes, forks and knives and stuff like that that need to be cleaned. Um you if you're wearing clothes, which you should be. Hopefully, yeah. You're gonna have to do laundry or somebody's gonna have to help you with laundry. Um, you know, if you you know you're just living, you're gonna expect people to straighten up every once in a while, or you straighten up every once in a while. And there's nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong with telling Social Security, yeah, I do it. It takes me five times as long as it used to, and it's a pathetic job compared to what I used to do. Man, I used to, you know, keep a spotless house, you know, and we're talking white glove. You wouldn't find uh any dust. And uh, that's a joke now. You know, there's no way that I could even dust, but I try to straighten up and it takes me forever to do it. That's what a disabled person would say.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that's a good place to end it. Do you want to do a little recap?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

Yeah, I'll do my little recap just to a recap. These are the tipper top most ones. They're not all of them because there are there are some other things. But the tipper top one, get in and stay in regular ongoing treatment. That could be with a PCP, it could be with a specialist if you have the money for it, it could be um psychiatrist or a therapist or a psychologist or a case manager at a mental health facility. Um treatment is treatment, is treatment. If you go to um, you know, a family medical practice and you you always see the um the physician's assistant, um, the PA, that's fine. That's good. Social Security looks at them the same way they look at doctors. Well, I I I only see, you know, the registered nurse. That's fine. That's right. It's treatment, it's documented, they've come in for this. This is how we're gonna try to treat them, try to help them with their problems. That's the medical evidence that I can prove. So get in, stay in, ongoing treatment for your conditions. Second thing, have a cooperative spirit. And that's with everybody. That's with my office, my company, um, and that's with Social Security. Social Security, you know, asks you to fill out forms, do it. They ask you to fill out forms in two weeks, do it. They ask you to go to a consultative exam that they're gonna put the bill for, do it. My uh case managers ask you to talk to your doctor about get a medical source statement, do it. You know, my case managers say, you know, you know, I need to hear from you, you know, more often than than I'm hearing from you. You know, give us a call like every two or three weeks, do it. Have a cooperative spirit. I mean, you're applying for disability, and everybody in the process expects you to be cooperative. We expect it, Social Security expects it. Um, make it easy on yourself by actually having that cooperative spirit. And then the third one when you're talking to us, when you're talking to your providers, when you're talking to Social Security, you are applying for disability. We need to hear things that a disabled person would say. We are not applying for ability. So I don't want to hear that you're able to do this and I can do this and I can do that and I can do this. We want to hear I can't do this, I can't do this, I don't do this as fast as I used to. I do this, but I make mistake after mistake after mistake. That's what a disabled person would say, and that's what we want to hear.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

All right. That's a good wrap up. All right. If you have a question about your disability case, drop it in the comment section below, and we will do our best to answer it in the next episode.