Gathering Records of your Disability
Prepare copies of your documents. These include everything you submitted to the Social Security office, including doctor’s reports, medical records, and test results. These are the same documents you gave to the SSA office when you applied for SSI benefits. If you do not have a copy of these records, contact your local SSA office for a copy. The SSA can be reached at 1-800-772-1213 (1-800-325-0778 for teletypewriter assistance) or you can visit the SSA website at https://www.ssa.gov/disabilityssi/.
Address gaps in time in your medical history. While you may have a good reason for a gap of two or three months in between doctor’s visits (like losing insurance), the judge will want to know that. Go through your medical records, identify gaps, and write a few paragraphs addressing the reasons behind those gaps. Request paperwork from your health care providers to account for any gaps in time. For example, if you experienced surgery and recovered at home for 6 months, ask for documentation that proves you were disabled during this time period. Contact your health care providers for latest, up-to-date health and medical records in addition to any missing documentation from the time gaps you found.
Obtain written statements attesting to your condition from your doctor. Your doctors understand your condition better than anyone except yourself, and their opinions with respect to your condition and its severity are some of the most compelling forms of evidence you can have. Request detailed written letters describing your disability and how it affects your ability to financially support yourself. At a minimum, it should contain a diagnosis, an explanation of why it is a chronic condition, the prognosis, and its severity.
Compile medical documentation for ongoing treatment. Collect any documentation for any present and future appointments you have scheduled with your health care provider. Presenting this type of paperwork at your hearing helps prove your disability is ongoing. For example, if you have an appointment with your physical therapist next week, print out a copy of your appointment confirmation and bring it with you to your hearing.
Make additional copies of all your medical documents. This includes the past treatment history you originally submitted to the SSA, your written accounts of the gaps in your medical history, and the letters from your doctors verifying your condition. You should have copies for yourself, your attorney, and for the judge presiding over your hearing.
Hiring an Attorney or Representative Specializing in Social Security Disability
Search for Social Security Disability attorneys or representatives in your area. Your representative at the hearing does not have to be an attorney, but it should be someone who is familiar with the hearings process and the requirements for an individual to be awarded benefits. Perform an Internet search for attorneys and representatives that can help. As a preliminary measure, look at their reviews and weed out anyone who you aren’t comfortable with. You can also get a referral from your local bar association. However, these referrals basically narrow down a pool of attorneys based on their specialty and pick one at random.
Ask the attorneys and representatives the right questions. Just asking them whether they win their cases won’t cut it. You need to ask them specific questions about your case and how they would go about representing you. For instance: The SSA has very particular requirements for recognizing disabling conditions and how those conditions must manifest in order to make a claimant eligible. A representative who has handled a case for a client with your particular disability is more likely to be effective in crafting you appeal. It would be a very good sign if the representative could rattle off the requirements the SSA takes into account for your particular condition. For example, "Can you tell me what the criteria are for determining whether rheumatoid arthritis is a disabling condition?" SSA claims representatives typically take 25% of a client’s back payments in compensation, and they are capped at no more than $6,000 per client. However, some representatives will charge you extra for research and document recovery. Since plenty won’t charge for those same services, don’t enter into a relationship with a representative unless you feel comfortable with the fee structure. For example, "Do you charge for travel and other incidental expenses, or do you just take a fixed percentage?"
Provide the attorney with details regarding your case. You should tell them about your condition, your difficulties in obtaining work with the condition, and most of all, your rejection letter. This will help them to craft your appeal. You may also want to go ahead and give them copies of all the current and updated medical records you gathered.
Preparing for Questions at the Hearing
Review the dates of your employment history since you became disabled. The judge is going to look into your employment history for the past fifteen years prior to your filing for disability, determine what the required skills for those positions were, and cross reference that to your work history since you’ve been disabled. If you can’t perform any of the type of work you’ve done in the past decade and a half, then the judge evaluates whether or not you can be retrained in light of your disability, age, and education level. #* You will need to explain to the judge about how long you have had difficulties with your disability, and how the onset of your condition changed your relationship to work. Provide concrete examples. For example, if your disability has required you to struggle with lifting boxes at your job for 5 years, mention it at your hearing.
Prepare to discuss all your physical and psychological symptoms. When your symptoms are invisible, like those from chronic pain or mental illness, it is of particular importance to discuss your symptoms as specifically as possible. For example, if your disabling condition is obsessive-compulsive disorder, you can try saying, "My disorder can be unpredictable. I've had issues at other jobs when my OCD has prevented me from finishing my duties in a timely manner." Speak specifically about the symptoms that prevent you from being able to work at any job effectively, because the judge is also evaluating whether you can be retrained to do other types of work.
Explain how the medications you take effect your ability to work. Sometimes it isn’t the underlying condition that causes the disability, but the course of treatment you’re under. If this is true in your case, you need to specify the effects of the medication and why these side effects are likely to persist. For example, if your medication impairs your speech or makes you excessively drowsy, mention these side effects during your testimony. Make sure that your doctor verifies that there are no alternative courses of treatment that are effective on you.
Prepare to talk about a typical day in your life coping with your disability. Finally, make the judge sympathize with you. They need to understand how merely coping with your disability is a constant struggle. Making adjustments around your disability pervades your life, hinders your daily routine, and prevents you from being able to perform normal tasks, and the judge needs to understand that.. For example, if your condition makes it difficult to walk, tell the judge how long it takes you to make it from the front door to your car, how often you have to sit and take breaks, and how difficult it is to stand up.
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