Social security disability claims can be very complicated. For that very reason we always suggest that any prospective disability claimant speak to a local attorney in their area to discuss their claim and at the very least obtain some free advice and tips on how to move forward. However, this does not mean that an individual cannot pursue their claim on their own without an attorney or advocate, in fact, there is no law or rule stating you must hire an attorney to help you. That being said, I wanted to go over some of the most common mistakes made during the application process and appeals.
Mistake #1 – Claimant’s do not let SSA know ALL of their medical impairments. This happens all the time with an initial application. Most often what happens is that the claimant lists the medical impairments that are the most severe, but they leave out any less severe or what they consider non-disabled impairments. It is important for any claimant to list ALL of their medical impairments no matter how minor they are because many minor impairments in combination with one another can be disabling. Additionally, it does no harm to list these minor impairments and SSA will in no way penalize you for merely alleging them.
Mistake #2 – Claimants do not list ALL of their medical providers. When you apply for disability you need to make sure to list every single doctor and hospital or medical facility you have been to at least one year prior to the time you are alleging you became disabled. Many individuals fail to list ALL their providers and instead only list the ones they are currently seeing. Other individuals forget to list any hospitals or urgent care facilities they have been to. Furthermore, other individuals fail to list any out of state providers they may have been to. The best thing you can do is to be over inclusive and list every single medical provider, past and current, that you have seen going back as far as 1 year prior to when you stopped working or when you became disabled.
Mistake #3 – Claimants fill out function reports and/or third party function reports incorrectly. These reports are forms that SSA routinely sends to claimant’s after they initially apply. It is important to complete these forms in a timely manner, but more importantly you must be sure to let SSA know how your medical impairments affect your ability or inability to work. It is also important to make sure to not exaggerate your symptoms but you also do not want to minimize your symptoms. Overall, these forms can be very important later on in the later stages of a disability claim and an attorney can help you make sure they are completed accurately.
Mistake #4 – Claimant’s do not appeal a disability denial. This is probably the biggest and most common mistake we see being made. Unfortunately, when you do not appeal a denied claim within the 60 day time limit you lose your rights to appeal and you must start over from the beginning. Not appealing can create a vicious circle where a claimant keeps re-applying, starting from square one each and every time and thus will continue to be denied each and every time. A claimant’s best chance for winning their disability claim is at the hearing stage, and the only way to get to the hearing stage is to appeal a denied claim, not just once, but twice. Not appealing is pretty much a sure fire way to never win your disability benefits.
These 4 common mistakes are probably the most common ones made and we as social security disability attorneys see them all the time. However, once we get involved with a claim, these mistakes are never made. If you are thinking about applying for social security disability benefits or if you have already been denied, you may want to talk to a local disability attorney to prevent yourself from making these common mistakes yourself.