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jerseyj, knows the system for sure. In virginia, at least, an appeal can take a year. She was rejected twice. It took my wife 3 years to receive her SSDI and medicare. She has CRPS/RSD. I secured an SS attorney quickly after her first rejection. I then contacted my congressman to move the process along if at all possible. She was finally approved, automatically approved for medicare because of the long wait. If I'm not mistaking if one is approved quickly, there is still a waiting period for medicare, 2 years I believe? She also received 3.5 years backpay, minus 6 months. We came very close in losing our house because of out of pocket medical bills. My congressman (Gerald Connally) helped us enormously in preventing this from happening.
>> Originally Posted by mvintar My understanding is that it might take as long as a year, and that they more or less automatically turn everyone down initially, regardless of the circumstances.
This is, actually, not true.
As I recall it took my wife 6 months for her first rejection. It was then the lawyer filed for an appeal. This appeal did not take place in a timely manner because SS said we did not file quick enough (60 days?). We filed within 30 days but SS screwed up. They admitted it was their fault and proceeded. It took close to another year for her second rejection then 1+ years to get her in front of a judge.
In almost all cases, there is an automatic denial the first time. There is an army of SS lawyers who know that, and you need to get a lawyer specialist to appeal, which will take about two years, if you live that long. They have full page ads in the Yellow Pages.
By law, your social security lawyer is awarded 30% of your retroactive back benefits for those two years, as his fee. If the lawyer says you have a legitimate case, you always win and the lawyer gets 30% of the money that you should have gotten in the first place, for making a single ten minute appearance in social security court, which averages $8-10K. It is, of course, in your lawyer's best interest to drag his feet and make this interval as long as humanly possible. During this time, the lawyer is very unlikely to take your phone calls or return your call. Unless you're lucky and get someone new who hasn't learned how to be a lawyer yet.
Your congress (most of whom are lawyers) constantly vigilant to "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty" for their fellow lawyers.
In almost all cases, there is an automatic denial the first time. There is an army of SS lawyers who know that, and you need to get a lawyer specialist to appeal, which will take about two years, if you live that long. They have full page ads in the Yellow Pages.
By law, your social security lawyer is awarded 30% of your retroactive back benefits for those two years, as his fee. If the lawyer says you have a legitimate case, you always win and the lawyer gets 30% of the money that you should have gotten in the first place, for making a single ten minute appearance in social security court, which averages $8-10K. It is, of course, in your lawyer's best interest to drag his feet and make this interval as long as humanly possible. During this time, the lawyer is very unlikely to take your phone calls or return your call. Unless you're lucky and get someone new who hasn't learned how to be a lawyer yet.
Your congress (most of whom are lawyers) constantly vigilant to "promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty" for their fellow lawyers.
I hear you Jt but in my wife's case her lawyer was a veteran lawyer and one of the best in NOVA. Her last name is Abrams. She returned all our calls and called me several times to explain and help draw down hangups as they arose. She was quite good. Although it took around 3 years to wrap it up, my wife's condition is a rare non fatal but crippling condition. It was extremely difficult to pull the doctors together because most are clueless about CRPS/RSD although they will claim otherwise. You have a gripe with the lawyers, as I can understand, I have a gripe with the doctors.
I hear you Jt but in my wife's case her lawyer was a veteran lawyer and one of the best in NOVA. Her last name is Abrams. She returned all our calls and called me several times to explain and help draw down hangups as they arose. She was quite good. Although it took around 3 years to wrap it up, my wife's condition is a rare non fatal but crippling condition. It was extremely difficult to pull the doctors together because most are clueless about CRPS/RSD although they will claim otherwise. You have a gripe with the lawyers, as I can understand, I have a gripe with the doctors.
Just to clarify, my gripe is not with the lawyers as such, but with the Social Security Administration and whatever government agency directs them, for handing the lawyers this goose that lays golden eggs.
When I applied, I was told that it would take around 90 days.
At the end of 90 days, I called them and they said I had been approved; for some reason, they hadn't gotten around to notifying me yet.
I was lucky. I didn't use an attorney and I was approved the first time I applied. I think one thing that helps is being very, very thorough. I remember it took me something like seven hours to fill out the on-line form because I was almost obsessive about listing every doctor and every appointment I had had. I was lucky in that I had just had my independent medical exam (it was a work injury) and I had all their documentation at my fingertips to get a lot of my information from.
The very next morning after I applied, I got a phone call from my local SSI office, wanting me to come in to sign the release form so they could get my records.
So, I guess my biggest advice would be to be sure you dot every 'i' and cross every 't' and to make sure, before you even sit down to get started, that you have everything you need in front of you in the way of information.
I applied and got my first check 14 months later, for total blindness.
I got turned down the first time for having more than $2,000 in savings, the second time for a snafu in my forms, and then the third time my case worker was just like, "this is ridiculous" and made sure my case got through.
They helped me fill out my forms at the local SSA so I could make sure they didn't get messed up again, lol.
They had to decide whether or not my same sex marriage counted but then decided I'm single on the federal level, so that added some time to the process too.
I applied and got my first check 14 months later, for total blindness.
I got turned down the first time for having more than $2,000 in savings, the second time for a snafu in my forms, and then the third time my case worker was just like, "this is ridiculous" and made sure my case got through.
I didn't realize that you could be turned down because of any other funds you might have.
Because my permanent disability was caused by an injury on the job, I got a settlement from the state's "workman's comp" and it didn't affect my SSI disability at all.
I didn't realize that you could be turned down because of any other funds you might have.
Because my permanent disability was caused by an injury on the job, I got a settlement from the state's "workman's comp" and it didn't affect my SSI disability at all.
I think it's at the time of applying.
Are you talking about SSI or SSDI? the rules are different for savings. I hadn't worked enough to qualify for SSDI but I qualified for SSI after I had less than 2 grand.
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