Answering your SSDI Questions (Part 2) | The Disability Benefits Podcast #40

In this episode, we continue in answering your questions about the disability process. If you are seeking help in any stage of the process, we're here to help!

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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_00 0:00

Okay, so part two, same thing, a lot of questions. Uh I think actually these are mostly comments, um, like just statements, not questions, but all right, good opportunities for us to take them in a certain direction. Um, so okay, well, this first one is a question. It just says, uh, does having a lawyer help you out in the process? Do they speak to you for the ALJ? Well, it's supposed to say, yeah. And do they do they speak in front of the ALJ in the hearing? I guess is what it's supposed to say. You know, that is a great question. Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

But yeah, it's a great question because a lot of people, you know, some people are like, I'm not talking. Um I hired you to do all that. Well, that that it doesn't work that way. You have to talk. But yes, I will be there at the hearing, and yes, I do a lot of talking. But the judge is going to ask questions to the star witness. And the star witness is sworn in. It's the only formal, what I consider the only formal part of a hearing that resembles any kind of other courtroom procedure. And that is you are sworn in. You know, the judge will ask you on the phone, because most of our hearings are phone now, you know, please raise your right hand and and he or she will swear you in. Um, promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God. You promise to tell the whole truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth on the penalty of perjury. They give it, some judges say, so help me God, some say under penalty of perjury. Um, and you you get sworn in because you're the star witness. Nobody knows your life, even if I've been involved in two, two and a half years in your case, still nobody knows your life like you. And the judge is gonna ask you, how far do you go in school? Who all lives in your household? How old are your kids? Do you help your kids with school work? Do your kids help you with housework? You know, a disabled person that it usually flips like that, especially, you know, 12, 12 and over kids are now helping you because you know you have your disabilities. But they're gonna ask these kinds of questions. When's the last time you worked? Well, in that job, you know, what was your job title? Did you have to lift and carry? Well, how much did you have to lift and carry? Did you have to stand and walk? Oh, okay. Well, how long were you on your feet in a typical eight-hour workday? Yeah, do any sitting? All these things. Think about it. If the judges were to ask me those kinds of questions, or if I were just to stand up and start monologuing. Well, Mrs. Smith is 54 years old. She's married to Johnny, her husband. Mrs. Smith has three kids, ages six. That's one, it's really awkward. Yeah. And two, it's not as impactful as the claimant talking. Now, when it's why why you think you're disabled, um, you're gonna say the problems that you have with your symptoms, symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. Not so much your diagnoses, they have that in the medical records. You're gonna talk about your symptoms. But I'm gonna talk about the law. Well, pursuant to SSR 96-8, my 43-year-old client could not be expected to make it through an eight-hour workday, much less a 40-hour work week, because of and the medical record at exhibit 3F, page 29, I'm gonna do that. You don't have to do that, you don't have to make a legal argument, stuff like that. At the end of the hearing, when they're talking to the vocational witness, and in all adult hearings, there is a vocational witness, almost all, 99%. Um you're not gonna have to cross-examine the vocational witness after the judge has asked them some questions. I will cross-examine them. But yes, you must talk in a hearing. You're the star witness, and nobody knows you like you. You're the best person to talk about what your life is like with your disabilities. Best person. You know, I can help you with you know the law and I can help you with cross-examining an expert witness. But and I can I can throw you softballs too. When I ask you questions, yeah, okay, well, you told the judge that you're able to, you know, be on your feet for you know about 45 minutes at a time. Is that just 45 minutes solid, or do you have to take a break even doing that? Oh no, Mr. Girls, there's no way I could stand 45 minutes solid. Oh, okay. Well, you know, you you said that you walk for you know 20 or 30 minutes. You know, could you could you walk to your mailbox and back? I'd become short of breath, you know, halfway there. Okay. And I and that's what I will do. Yeah. Um, but then I'm asking you questions and you're giving me, you know, answers, and the answers are are what the judge is going to use to say, okay, this person's credible. It may it matches what their medical records say. And you know, if if they're credible and it matches what the medical records say, they're likely going to prove your case.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yeah, I mean, if if the judge asks the claimant, you know, do you have any pets? Okay, what kind of pets? Okay, you have rabbits, you know, how often do you change their cage, or how what do you do to take? You have no business answering that for the client.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

I will never have I will never have broached the subject of your your rabbits, your affiliation to rabbits, or your or your horses. Or yeah, I mean, I will have asked you about standing, walking, lifting, carrying, concentrating, staying on tasks, stuff like that. I might ask you if you have kids, you know, I might ask if if you know if your husband works, but my focus is going to be laser focused on what you have going on with you and the symptoms because of what you have going on with you. Yep. Um, and so I'm I am ill-equipped to tell a judge about fluffy your rabbit, yeah, um, or Ernie your horse.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, because you don't want to misrepresent how long it takes them to change the rabbit's cage. How would you uh next one? Uh Roy says, have an appointment with a lawyer, judge, and myself tomorrow. Just listening to this podcast about topics has helped me get ready for the phone call at 8 a.m. tomorrow. Um, yeah, that's that was more than a day ago, so that he already had the hearing. Um, hopefully it was an approval or it might still be pending to get the decision.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

But well, you came up with the brilliant idea, and I have gotten so many positive comments from my clients because we now send them a link to the hearing video that I made many moons ago. Um, and I just tell them, you know, it's about 40 minutes. Um, watch it because it's gonna walk you through the mechanics of the hearing. The phone is gonna ring. This is who's gonna be on the phone, these are the types of questions that you can expect. Um, it's gonna just walk you through everything. These are the questions that I'm definitely gonna ask you. This is how long it lasts, this is kind of the order that they all go in, because they're all pretty much the same, whether you're in Maine or whether you're in California or you're in Florida or you're in Alaska, they pretty much all go the same. Yes. Um, but um my clients, you know, when I call them to prep them, because I still call them and prep them even if they've watched the video. Sure. But that's the first question out of my mouth. Hey, did you get the video link that we sent? Yeah. Did you watch it? Yeah, yeah. Symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. You did watch it. If you if you say that, I know that you watched it, because I say that a lot in the in the video. So yeah, but it's helpful. It's you know, I'd I'd want to know something. You know, I I don't know if we've talked about this. My my first hearing, I had been doing this, you know, advertising and preparing uh clients and uh you know, and just basically doing it. I I'd spent, you know, a decade and a half working in disability for Social Security, but when I jumped ship, for about the first six months, I didn't go to a hearing. I mean, I was getting clients. And so, you know, after I amassed enough clients to where I had my first hearing, I knew nothing. I didn't know how the hearing goes, I didn't know what I was supposed to say, I didn't know when I was supposed to say. And um, you know, I I think about that when when I hear things like this, or when I prep my clients now, I'm like, you know, it sure it sure would be nice to know how it's gonna go. Something as simple as telling them around the time of your hearing, the phone is gonna ring and I'll already be on the phone because they call me first to make sure that I have your number. That's the mechanics of the hearing, but it's nice to know that, you know, and it's nice to know that for the most part with these phone hearings, they're running pretty close to on time. And then when we get in the hearing, this is how it's gonna proceed. These are the questions you can expect. This is how it's gonna proceed, this is how long it's gonna last. And I, you know, I wish that I had that kind of you know knowledge when I first absolutely jumped ship and and started practicing. Um, so I I see the value in that and giving my clients. Here's the heads up. You know, you can watch the video, and the great thing, you can watch it as many times as you want. You're only you're only gonna get a phone call for me to prep you one time, and it'll, you know, I'll basically tell you everything, and and and if I feel we're in good shape, I'm gonna let you go. And then the next time we talk, we'll be in the hearing. But you can watch that video, you know, one o'clock in the morning eating popcorn. Yeah. That's kind of sad if you do, but if I mean you can.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, and a whole nother element that we've added to the company with doing this podcast and with doing any kind of clips that we that we produce. If a if a claimant comes to us and they already have a lawyer or they already have a representative and they want our help, granted, they're not they're not trying to fire the rep, they just want our help. They already have a lawyer. We're not gonna help them. We can't, you know, we can't ethically help them. We're just we're not gonna mess with that case. Like, look, man, if you have a case, if you have a hearing coming up and you have a lawyer, you need to speak to your lawyer. We're not we're not gonna get on the phone with you and because we even if we could give you good advice, we would we don't want to interfere with the advice that your lawyer is giving you, you know. But but with the content that we're producing, just general information about how you know how this is how the initial uh stage works, this is how a hearing works, this is what you can say to increase the odds of of winning all this content that we have online, even if you're not a client of ours, whether you're working with a different firm or you're working with no firm and you just want to go at it yourself, we're still happy to help you out just by you know sending you these videos and and helping the general public instead of only our our clients that we're representing.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Sure. And that's you know, I I feel good about that. And you you touched on something that's you know, I look at it always from okay, if I was the other rep, yeah, and that was my client, my client was calling another firm. Um what are you doing? Why are you calling them? Yeah, um, and that's why we don't take you, um, especially if you got a hearing scheduled. Um if they've if they've walked with you, if the rep has walked with you this far, um, unless there's just something that's just downright egregious that they're they're horrible at, um, you need to stick with them, you know, and always be up front with them. You know, well, I expect to hear from you, you know, every couple weeks. Or, you know, I I expect you to know my medical record, you know, you know, I expect this. You can give them expectations, you know. You know, reps work for you. Yeah, you don't work for them. Yeah, yeah. And I tell my clients that all the time, you know, it's especially if we have a big decision. Sometimes there are big decisions where we get what they call a partially favorable decision, and that's exactly what it sounds like. It's favorable. The the judge is a it's usually a judge. The judge has approved you, but you said you became disabled in January of 24, and the judge says you became disabled in January 25. You're gonna miss out on a year's worth of benefits. Your monthly benefit amount was 1,500. So we're talking about 18 grand, you're gonna miss out on. You want to appeal that case, or do you want to just let bygones be bygones and just don't poke the bear anymore? And you know, a lot of people would be like, Well, Carl, you make that decision. You're the rep, you've got that expertise. I do have that expertise. I am the rep, but that's their decision. Yeah, they they can just stick with what they have and know that the case has been approved because there's risk if you appeal any decision. You appeal, okay. Well, I just want to appeal that that they didn't go back that extra year. I don't want to appeal that that I'm disabled. I I agree with them on that. That don't work that way. Right. If you appeal a case, um you're appealing everything, and the judge can, and some have, reversed a partially favorable to an outright denial. Um, I think a judge that does that, you know, has a serious crusading problem. But then again, I'm not a judge. Um, but it happens. It's happened to me. And you basically have to tell your client, well, you know that that approval we got, you know, a year and a half ago that we appealed has come down now and it's an outright denial. And now we're gonna have now our appeals are really kind of do or die. And um it's it's just it's just a mess. But the decision was theirs. I I'll never make that decision. Yeah, I will tell them, you know, I work for you, you don't work for me, and you make that decision.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Right. Next comment is pretty much on the same topic of representation. Um, responding to a video we did about how good representatives will check in with you periodically. Uh this viewer just says, I wish mine would check in even though there's no update. Watching your video makes me wish I saw them first. Which we I mean, we we get that a lot, and you don't even really have to answer that because it's what we're talking about here.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

It's exactly what we just seen. If if you have expectations, call your rep and tell them, you know. Yeah, you can drop our name if you want to, but you could say, Hey, I saw a video on TikTok or on Instagram. And this one firm, you know, they they call people every you know 30, 45 days, even if they have no news. Could you start doing that? And nothing wrong with giving them that. You know, hey, that's my expectation. You know, if I'm if I'm a disability claimant, I I wouldn't feel bad about doing that.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Right. Okay. Next comment is good news. The viewer says, watched you guys before my approval at SSA Office. Uh, you gave me great advice, and I thank you for that. So now I come by occasionally to show support and comment and give a like on your videos. Fantastic. And they're not lying because I see them like and comment on our videos all the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Those are my favorite posts. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yeah, it gives us a little bit of motivation that these are actually working. Yeah, people are seeing them, yeah. Helping people, yeah. Cool. Okay, another one. Um, this is similar to the the last question we did on part one of this, kind of answering the comment section. Right. Person says, I have surgery in my back, L3, uh, burst, fusion surgery, and L2, L5, uh, two surgeries in my feet, fusion fusion surgery in my heel. I'm 52 years old. I was denied two times. Very um, oh, I don't want to say pessimistic, but very like, what the heck? Why why would they? I have all this going on, I'm 52, right? I'm disabled, they denied me. And it's another one of those where it's like, I wish it surprised us. I wish we say that never happens, but it doesn't at all. I see it all the time. Yeah. And you gotta file the appeals and you gotta take it to the hearing level, and then if the judge makes a horrible decision, you gotta take it to the appeals counselor, just keep going.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

That's right. You didn't you if they if they tell you no, um, you just keep on going. The thing is, is you know, 50 is the magic age. Um, and we've talked about this in other videos. If you are 49 and younger, so basically 18, the date that Social Security considers you an adult, up to 49. You literally have to prove to Social Security that you can't do any type of work in a national economy. And I mean any type of work, like a telemarketer, sit down in in air conditioning all day long. You don't have to do really much thinking at all. You're reading from a script, you're not lifting or carrying anything. In fact, you're not even lifting a phone because you got a headset clipped on, and your job is to push a button when the call comes in. Hi, my name's Carl. Thanks for calling about the widget. The widget is the best uh product on earth, it's better than sliced bread. Um, it can do this and it can do that, and da da da da. Would you like to buy a widget because I can transfer to a salesman if that's the case? Um, oh no, okay. Well, you're not interested, but thank you for calling anyway, and uh have a great day. That's your job. Or are you interested in hearing more from a salesman? Okay, I'll transfer to a salesman. That's your job. I have to prove you can't do that if you're 49 and younger. However, when you hit 50, it becomes easier because I don't have to prove that you can't do anything. I only have to prove that you're limited to a sit-down type job and you can't do the past work that you did. So, this for this 52-year-old, if you had a sedentary job, which is what I do, it's you know, it's a desk job. If you had a sedentary job and you're 52, it's gonna be real hard to win that disability case because you could probably do your past work in the eyes of Social Security. Yeah, yeah. And then of course everything changes. And when you hit 55, now I only have to prove that you're limited to light work unless you've done light work or sedentary work, you know, like a cashier or a desk job. Um, and then it gets even easier when you hit 60. Every five years, it gets easier. Um, those are called the grids. Um, but it's you know, the remedy is always going to be the same. And we've said it several times already, which is that's right, keep going, don't let no be no. Make sure that to you, no just means you haven't convinced them yet.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah. Another thing that I I see a lot, I talk to a lot of clients that uh they say they've been denied several times, but they haven't filed appeals. I do want to say that as well. If you've been denied, you should really file the appeal. And then if you're denied a second time, file the next appeal. If you wait to file, just you know, you get denied, you don't appeal, then you file a new claim. Um, you can do it that way. A lot of people do it that way. We can still win the case. But one, you could be missing out on back pay. Uh your past two benefits could be less. And then also you're you're just not you're not utilizing the entire process. The entire process is supposed to be it gets to the hearing level, and that's a big deal. You get to verbally testify that you're unable to work.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Exactly. It's sequential. Uh-huh. And if you apply and you get denied, and then you just let it ride, you know, for a few months. The the deadline is almost always 60 days in Social Security. So if you don't appeal that within the 60 days of your denial, well, guess what? You start all over. It's not, it's not like you're you're filing an appeal, you're just doing it, you know, six months after you were denied, because you can't do that. You have to file it within that time frame. And that is the, like you said, that's the process, and it's a sequential thing. So there are people, and I you you see their their case filed, and they filed in this year, and then they filed, you know, a couple times in the next year, but they're always initial filings. There's never a reconsideration, which is your first appeal. There's never a request for a hearing, which is your second appeal. They they didn't follow the sequential part of it. They just kind of okay, well, I'm not gonna do anything, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna appeal it. I'll just file again later. Horrible decision. Like you said, you're gonna miss out on you're not you're not may miss. It's not that you may miss out on money, you're gonna miss out on money by doing that. Um, you know, it's it's meant to be sequential. If you disagree with Social Security, file the appeal. Um they're not horrible. Um, with a representative, you know, we file the appeal, you know. It's and we don't blink.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

When you get denied, we don't blink, we just file the appeal. It's like, yeah, we were kind of unfortunately we were kind of expecting that just because the way that the system works. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's the last last comment I have on here. Um I guess we'll end it there. Groovy. Cool. 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.