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Category Archives for Strategies for winning

The Disability Judge Denied Your Claim – What Can You do Next?

If the Social Security disability judge denies your case and sends you a decision marked “unfavorable” you will feel angry, offended and frustrated. After all, disability cases can take two to three years from the date of your application to the date you receive the denial.

During that time, you have been unable to work, most likely struggling financially and basically putting your life on hold waiting for a decision in your case.

Now, after talking to you for around 45 minutes (the length of a typical hearing), the judge has decided that he/she just doesn’t believe your testimony about the severity of your symptoms, or how these symptoms would likely impact you at a simple job.

Even worse, under recent Social Security rules, the judge is allowed to discount the opinion evidence from your long time treating doctor(s) in favor of a medical-vocational assessment by a SSA staff doctor who never even met you, or a doctor who met you for an hour as part of a consultative evaluation.

If you should get an unfavorable decision, what should you do? Continue reading →

The Disability Judge Ruled that One of Your Medical Impairments is “Non-Severe.” What Does this Mean and Why is it Important?

Recently I have noticed a trend at many of cases I am trying on behalf of applicants for Social Security disability. After listening to testimony, but before posting questions to the Vocational Expert, the judge will say something like this: “counselor, I am going to find that the [allegations of depression; breathing problems and COPD; knee damage and reduced range of motion in the left lower extremity; etc.] are non-severe impairments and thus will not be included in questions I ask to the vocational expert. Do you have any objections to this?”

What does this mean to you if you are the claimant appearing at a hearing like this?

The term “non-severe impairment” is a term of art in the Social Security world. When judges evaluate claims, or, more accurately, elements of claims, they are required by law to analyze your case using something called the “five step sequential evaluation process.” Continue reading →

Will You be Approved for Disability Based on Your Diagnosis?

I frequently receive emails and comments on my YouTube channel from folks who want to know if they will be found disabled due to a particular diagnosis. “Will I be found disabled by Social Security if I have a herniated disc/carpal tunnel syndrome/major depression/cirrhosis of the liver, etc., etc.

I am not the only one who gets these questions. A retired judge who I appeared before many times and who knows Social Security disability law as well as anyone answers questions on Quora and he gets this question – apparently from the same person – over and over.

The judge’s answer and mine is the same – you do not win or lose your Social Security claim based on your diagnosis. The right question to ask is whether your symptoms and medication side effects leave you without the capacity to reliably perform simple, entry level work.

Social Security defines disability in these terms. When you appear at a hearing, every question the judge or your attorney asks is focused on your work capacity.

You could have four herniated discs, congestive heart failure and uncontrolled diabetes, but if you are working or can work an 8 hour day, you will not be found disabled. Continue reading →

Are You Guaranteed a Disability Approval if you Meet a Listing?

Are you guaranteed a favorable decision from Social Security disability if your diagnosis is included in Social Security’s Blue Book of Listed Impairments? Not necessarily, and here’s why.

Social Security’s Blue Book identifies fourteen “body systems.” For example, listing 1 discusses the musculoskeletal system and within this listing are a number of diagnoses that reflect impairments to your spine, bones and joints. Listing 4 discusses the cardiovascular system and listed within are diagnoses related to heart and circulatory functioning.

Visit my website MeetaListing.com to look at all of the listings and explanations about how to use the Listings to win.

I regularly get emails and comments on my YouTube channel from claimants who are upset that they were denied even though they feel strongly that they met a listing. Why were these cases not approved. Continue reading →

Why You Should Avoid Using Labels at Your Social Security Disability Hearing

Most people applying for Social Security disability have some sort of firm diagnosis. For example, if you have back problems, your doctor may have shown you an MRI report documenting a herniated or bulging disc. If you have heart issues you may have been diagnosed with congestive heart failure or coronary artery disease. And if you struggle with mental health problems, you may have been diagnosed as being bi-polar, or having PTSD, or anxiety disorder.

When you get to your hearing, however, you should not rely on these labels as you explain to the judge why you contend that you no longer have the capacity for “substantial gainful activity” (i.e., work).

First, understand that many times the label used by one doctor might be different than that used by another. In my practice, for example, I frequently represent clients with mental health issues who have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and/or bi-polar disorder – all by different physicians or psychologists. One medical provider may choose the label “depression” while a second doctor may choose the label “bi-polar.”

Similarly, I have seen multiple doctors read the same MRI report and come to different conclusions. One doctor may see a herniation, while another may see a bulge or an extrusion. Continue reading →

Can You – or Should You – Try to Work After Filing for Social Security Disability Benefits?

Because Social Security is so backlogged with its disability claim evaluation process, many truly disabled claimants try to return to work even for a short period of time because they need to survive.

In some cases, returning to work can damage your case because a Social Security judge may conclude that you really do have the capacity to perform competitive work. However, in other situations, your unsuccessful attempts to work can help your case by demonstrating that you truly want to work but you just cannot do so.

In this blog post, I want to break down how SSA looks at part time work, unsuccessful work attempts and successful work efforts.

First, you need to understand the term “substantial gainful activity” or SGA. Social Security uses this term a good bit and you need to understand what it means. Continue reading →

How Social Security Disability Attorneys Identify Winning Mental Health Claims

Are you pursuing Social Security disability benefits based on a mental health condition such as:

  • depression
  • anxiety
  • PTSD
  • bi-polar disorder
  • schizophrenia
  • personality disorder

A significant number of disability applicants list mental health problems as either a primary or secondary impairment that prevents that applicant from working. From my perspective as a disability attorney who speaks with hundreds of honest, sincere claimants every year, I think that mental health disorders are both extremely common and widely untreated in the general population.  In short, there are a lot of folks out there who are really suffering and far too few get treatment that could really improve their lives.  Perhaps you fall into this situation.
Continue reading →

Why Activities of Daily Living are so Important to your Social Security Disability Claim

When you pursue disability benefits, you will be asked to fill out numerous forms by Social Security. You will find that many of these forms are repetitive – they seem to ask for the same information over and over.

Having spent a good deal of time with SSA’s forms (I wrote a book about how to fill them out properly), my guess is that this redundancy arises from the overall dysfunction at the Social Security Administration. Someone, in some far away office somewhere in the country, was given the assignment of heading up a team to update SSA’s disability forms. Government agencies rarely simplify anything so this nameless bureaucrat and his/her comrades no doubt spent months changing the format and the fonts, and adding questions to the forms.

Since there are only so many ways to ask you for an explanation why you believe you are disabled, the new forms ask for the same information 5 or 6 different ways.

With a few exceptions discussed below, I am not convinced that anyone with any decision making power actually reads your responses to these forms but you have to fill them out. Continue reading →

How Attorneys Identify Winning Back Pain Social security Disability Cases

by Jonathan Ginsberg and Erin Schmidt

You probably would not be surprised to discover that the most common impairment cited by Social Security disability applicants involves back pain. Because disability adjudicators and judges see so many back pain cases, you cannot simply walk into a disability hearing and testify that your back really hurts and that you cannot lift very much, walk very far, or sit very long, and expect to win.

Instead, Social Security disability judges expect to see evidence in the form of diagnostic test results (such as an MRI or CT scan), treatment notes from one or more physicians – ideally specialists – dating back months or years, evidence that conservative treatment like physical therapy or epidural injections have failed, and evidence that you are either a surgical candidate or that you have been referred for long term pain management.

In addition to evidence related to your back pain, Social Security judges look at evidence about other conditions such as depression, anxiety, diabetes, heart problems, and non-medical factors like your age, education, and work history.

Because so many folks have questions about back pain disability cases, I thought it would be helpful to describe the types of musculoskeletal pain cases that are getting approved at the end of 2017 and into 2018, and which types of cases are not being approved. Continue reading →

How to Get Support from Your Doctor if Believe that You Meet a Listing

In order to win disability benefits from Social Security, you (and your lawyer) have the burden of proving that you meet SSA’s definition of disability – that you are unable to engage in substantial gainful activity because of a medical or mental health condition that has lasted or is expected to last 12 consecutive months or result in death.

There are three (3) ways you can prove that you meet this definition:

  1. meet a Social Security listing
  2. fit within a “grid rule”
  3. prove that your capacity to function at even a simple, entry-level job has been so compromised by your multiple medical issues and/or medication side effects that you would not be a reliable employee

Continue reading →

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