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Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Disability Insurance Benefits Overview

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Natalia Jofre: Hi and Welcome to Hill & Ponton Social Security Disability blog. I’m Natalia Jofre. I’m the director for our Social Security section.
Shelly Mark: And I am Shelly Mark. I’m the senior Social Security attorney.
Natalia Jofre: Today we’re going to talk about one of the benefits that you can potentially qualify for under the Social Security Disability Program, and that is disability insurance benefits. The acronym is DIB, and a lot of people like to refer to it as “regular disability.” It’s because disability insurance benefits people think that that encompasses all of the benefits. In reality, that is the name of the one regular benefit.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: One of the basic criteria to qualify for regular disability … It would be that you have to have worked and paid into Social Security taxes …
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: … for at least five out of the last 10 years.
Shelly Mark: That’s a really big one, Natalia, because I’ve had friends, family, clients that have needed to file for disability, and for the right reasons. They’re very sick or whatever it may be, and they really did not realize that they had to have worked five out of the past 10 years. They thought maybe because they had worked 20 years, and they had stopped, that they would still be eligible, and that is not the case. So it is really important to realize that you have to have worked five out of the most recent past 10 years to be eligible.
Natalia Jofre: What you do is when you’re working and paying into Social Security taxes, you’re earning what are called earnings quarters. You have to make a certain amount, so it can’t just be, “Well, I worked from January through March. That’s a quarter of the year. I should get a quarter for that year.” No. If you made $500, you’re not going to have enough for an earnings quarters … an earnings quarter. You need to make somewhere in the ballpark of let’s say $1,300. But if you work, and let’s say you make $8,000 for the whole year, and you make that money just in one month … Like we see this all the time with real estate agents. Let’s go get a nice hefty commission check in November, and maybe it’s for like $8,000 and that will pay for their quarters for the whole year.
  So it doesn’t have to be that you worked the whole year, even if you made the amount in one particular month, but it was high enough and you paid Social Security taxes on that money, it could give you earnings quarters for the whole year. So that when you’re talking about working five out of the last 10 years, that’s what they’re looking at … how many earnings quarters do you have? The other thing is that there’s a five month waiting period.
Shelly Mark: That’s correct too. Basically, Social Security is going to owe you benefits from your onset date or the day that you’re alleging you became disabled, until when they’re actually paying you, but there is a five month waiting period. That’s a rule that’s across the board. It’s for everyone that is approved for disability benefits. It just means that for the first five months, you’re not going to be entitled to payment.
Natalia Jofre: The other alternative would be … Let’s say you waited to apply. They’re going to apply … It’s either going to be a five month waiting period or one year prior to your date of application. That’s in order for them to start paying you. Why do they do that? One of the most important things … and it will be the note that we end on … You will be penalized by Social Security if you wait to apply. The specific reason they have that rule in place is … Let’s say you became disabled in 2011. Let’s say maybe you were a housewife, and your husband was doing well, and you didn’t really feel the need to apply for benefits, and he was making more than enough money. So even though you were disabled, you just didn’t apply for benefits. Now his situation has changed. Maybe, he got another job. He’s making a lot less money, so now you’re like, “Now we need that extra income. Let me go ahead and file for my disability benefits.”
  Well, Social Security isn’t going to pay you all the way back to 2011 because you chose not to apply. They’re going to look at when did your disability actually start, when did you apply for benefits, and then even if you were disabled since 2011, they’re only going to pay you one year retroactively from the date of your application.
Shelly Mark: This is something just to note that we have to explain to our veteran clients as well. This is a big difference with the VA and Social Security, so we have to explain to not only our veteran clients, but to all clients, that if you allege you were disabled back in 2009, and you have the evidence to support that … If you didn’t file until 2014, you’re only going to get paid back the 12 months prior to your file date.
Natalia Jofre: We have a lot of cases for veterans that they’re no longer insured now. A lot of them come back from war with severe PTSD, so they don’t want to have to do anything with anyone, so they don’t apply for benefits. Several years pass, and then by the time they file, they’re past their date last insured. We’ll do a whole other blog on that because that’s a very complicated topic, but all of this to say that they won’t get benefits all the way back. But as long as we can prove that they were disabled prior to that date, they can still qualify for benefits. So that’s a really good point.
Shelly Mark: A lot of the things … The reason that I see veterans say that they don’t apply for Social Security is because their VA is pending. What we want to encourage them to do is to go ahead and apply for Social Security while your VA is pending, and let both process through.
Natalia Jofre: You don’t have to apply for one or the other. You can apply for both at the same time. All right, great. We will talk more about different benefits and their entitlement dates, and onset date. I think we’re going to do our next one on onset dates because that’s a really important topic.
Shelly Mark: Very.
Natalia Jofre: So we’ll see you next time. If you have any questions in the meantime, visit our blog or call our office.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Veterans and Other SS Benefits

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Natalia Jofre: Hi, and welcome to Hill & Ponton Social Security and Disability Blog. I’m Natalia Jofre, the director for our Social Security section.
Shelly Mark: And I’m Shelly Mark. I’m the senior Social Security attorney.
Natalia Jofre: As you may know if you’ve been watching our blogs, we’ve been talking about veterans’ disability benefits in conjunction with Social Security disability and how they can help each other and things like that. One of the things that we were discussing is applying for Social Security if you’re a disabled veteran and how that can help.
Shelly Mark: Right. You’re gonna kind of have a situation where it’s gonna depend on which one of your benefits is approved first to which is going to have the favorable use of the evidence from the other, meaning if your Social Security is approved and you’re found to be disabled and unable to work, then we will use that evidence in your VA claim to prove that you are disabled and unable to work. Although the government agencies aren’t required to agree with one another, they are required to give a certain weight to the evidence that the other agency has found you to be disabled. So it’s not an automatic shoo-in. Just because Social Security says you’re disabled, the VA can disagree. And just because the VA says you’re disabled, Social Security can certainly disagree, and they do that frequently.
Natalia Jofre: And we have people tell us that all the time. “One’s a federal agency and the other’s a federal agency. How can one say I’m disabled and the other one doesn’t?” And it’s like, “Listen, we agree with you. You know, we feel the same way, but we don’t make up the laws and we don’t decide who wins and who doesn’t.” But it’s a really good point and it is real favorable evidence for whichever case is still pending.
Shelly Mark: Exactly.
Natalia Jofre: One of the other things is not just benefits for the veteran, but benefits for the veteran’s dependents. If you’re a disabled widow or if you’re a disabled adult child or even a disabled child, a dependent child, any other person that’s potentially eligible for DIC benefits, sometimes we’ve had situations where the widow will say, “Well, I’m already getting this from DIC, so I can’t pursue that.” And what we wanna tell you is, don’t make that decision on your own.
Shelly Mark: Right, let us try to at least take a look and see, because like you said, there are a lot of situations to where, as a widow or a disabled child you may be entitled to benefits from the Veterans’ Administration as well as the Social Security Administration.
Natalia Jofre: And there are a lot of rules and regulations that go into that. I mean, it is not an easy read where, “Oh, let me just figure this out and see if I can get benefits.” I always tell people, “Apply for benefits. If you’re not gonna qualify, let them deny you and find out what you’re technically dealing with.” Because I will tell you, people are commonly denied for medical reasons, and that’s what we specialize in, is appealing those medical denials, but I am also seeing, more and more now, technical denials where they’re telling people, “You technically don’t qualify. You don’t meet these parameters.” And it’s actually an incorrect decision.
Shelly Mark: That’s very, very true.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah, so we can appeal those as well. And then in addition to that, there are other benefits that you can sometimes qualify for as a disabled veteran, just in a much grander scale, much grander scope. Like in the state of Florida, you can get …
Shelly Mark: The property taxes annu- there’s a property tax exemption, I think with certain recreational fishing license, hunting license, and things like that. And I think there’s more out there than that, but it’s definitely something to look into if you are and have been found to be a disabled veteran.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. A lot of those depend on whether you’re 100% service-connected. I know that the- I believe. I shouldn’t say I know. I believe. And this is why we don’t like to specifically advise on those things, is because they can change. Sometimes if you’re 100% service-connected, sometimes if you have a lower connection. What we always recommend is that people talk to their VSOs and let them tell you the scope of what you can qualify for in your area, because sometimes it does depend on the state you’re in, what you can qualify for, for free. But added benefits are added benefits.
Shelly Mark: Absolutely. One pattern that I tend to see a little on the Social Security side of things are a lot of denials of veterans that are 100% service-connected but are under the age of 50. So we wanna really encourage those veterans not to give up on the claim. Definitely, seek out help. Come to us or someone else to see if there is an avenue to have you approved. If you are under 50 and you’re 100% disabled through the VA, very, very common to be denied at those first two levels, but it can be a very different outcome once you get before a judge. So just keep pursuing it.
Natalia Jofre: That’s good. All right, that’s all for today. We’ll see you next time. If you have any questions, feel free to visit our website or call our office. Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Veterans and Medicare

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Natalia Jofre: Hello and Welcome to Hill & Ponton’s Social Security Disability blog. I’m Natalia Jofre. I’m the Director for our Social Security Section.
Shelly Mark: My name’s Shelly Mark and I am the Senior Attorney with the Social Security Division.
Natalia Jofre: Recently married. Hence, the little hesitation on the last name. Shelly and I were talking and the last time we did a video, we talked about Veterans benefits and how a Veteran can also qualify for Social Security Disability and we realized that there’s other benefits to pursuing a Social Security claim, not just the monetary benefits. One of those being Medicare.
Shelly Mark: Definitely. When someone is approved for Social Security Disability, they’re also going to be eligible for Medicare benefits. There is a waiting period for Medicare once you’re approved for disability. That is 24 months but that is a retroactive waiting period. Once that waiting period’s over, the individual will be entitled to Medicare. So if they have the VA then they can still use the VA at the Veteran’s Administration and then use their Medicare if they want to see any private doctors.
Natalia Jofre: A lot of people get confused with the waiting periods. They’re like 24 months. It’s 24 months from when you became entitled to benefits. So, let’s say Social Security finds that you’re disabled as of January 12th of 2014. There’s a five month waiting period you’re not paid for and they don’t start counting that in January. They start counting it the following month. So it’ll be February, March, April, May, June, July. July of 2014, you become entitled to Social Security so July of 2016, you would become entitled to Medicare.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: The other thing and one of the reasons that we find, sometimes, Veterans don’t elect to take the Medicare when it’s offered is because it’s not free.
Shelly Mark: That’s true.

 
Natalia Jofre: Right?
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: There’s a premium. It’s somewhere between 100 and 200 dollars a month.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: I think it’s like 140 or 160 at this point.
Shelly Mark: I think so. I know it fluctuates.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah.
Shelly Mark: That’s true because some Veterans feel like they have enough care through the VA and it’s free.
Natalia Jofre: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shelly Mark: So they don’t really feel the need to have the Medicare. I think it’s probably nice for people to have the option in case they are seeking out any private treatment.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah.
Shelly Mark: But it is definitely just a personal decision.
Natalia Jofre: We do talk to a lot of Veterans that are unhappy with the doctors that they’re able to see through the VA.
Shelly Mark: That’s true.
Natalia Jofre: So it is a really good benefit to have if you’d like to have private care. You know, go to your own doctors, go to a hospital of your choosing and whatnot.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: So it is a pretty big benefit. I do want to say, though, that if you decline Medicare, you are not able to just take it whenever you want it. So in other words, there’s an open enrollment period. When you become entitled to disability benefits, they’re going to offer you Medicare. You can take it then and there. But if you decide not to take the benefit and then three months down the road you’re like, “Well, you know what? Kind of made a mistake. I should have taken it.” You can’t just jump on Medicare whenever you want. You then need to wait until the following year’s open enrollment period to be able to elect those benefits and get on the plan at that point. So, just keep that in mind if you’re a Veteran or any other person getting Social Security Disability. That you can’t necessarily get on or get off of that benefit whenever you want.
Shelly Mark: Right. Yeah, that’s definitely a good reminder. I think that a lot of people with the VA go ahead and do take the Medicare just to have a secondary insurance policy. You never know what might happen and you may be somewhere where you need to go to a private hospital or have some imaging done that maybe the VA is not able to pay for. In that case, Medicare will step in and pay for that for you.
Natalia Jofre: All right, great. Well, we’re going to be talking about some other Veterans benefits in our next blog so be sure to join us then. Otherwise, if you have some questions regarding Social Security Disability or Veteran’s Disability benefits, feel free to contact us at our website or call our office.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Special Veteran Accommodations

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Natalia Jofre: Hello, welcome to the Social Security Disability blog by Hill & Ponton. I’m Natalia Jofre, the Social Security Section Director for our firm.
Shelly Mark: And my name is Shelly Mark, I am the Senior Social Security Attorney with the firm.
Natalia Jofre: So you’ll notice she pauses lots of times right before saying “Mark”. This is not because she forgets her last name.
Shelly Mark: It’s true.
Natalia Jofre: It’s because she’s recently been married. Congratulations.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Natalia Jofre: So she has now transitioned from Shelly Campbell to Shelly Mark-
Shelly Mark: I apologize. I’ll get it eventually.
Natalia Jofre: There’s a little pause sometimes because she still has to remember “Mark”.
Shelly Mark: Yes, that’s correct.
Natalia Jofre: So today we’re not going to talk about that. But we are going to talk about our series on veterans’ benefits, veterans filing for disability, how it works together-
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: -all that good stuff. And there are a lot of special accommodations made for disabled veterans that are applying for Social Security disability, or for veterans, sometimes they haven’t even … They don’t have service connection, or they haven’t been approved, but they are veterans.
Shelly Mark: Right. One of the big things that we see a lot here is we have a lot of dual clients, meaning we handle both their VA claim and their Social Security disability, and in those cases if our veteran is service connected we always flag the file as a Wounded Warrior claim, and we ask Social Security to expedite the scheduling of a hearing for them. We have been very successful in having the claims expedited. Social Security is not required to do so, but in most situations they do. In some situations, they expedite them so quickly that we’re scrambling to get the medical records from the VA. But that’s a good problem to have.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So expediting means that they’re going to let your … They’re going to schedule a hearing sooner than they would if you weren’t a Wounded Warrior, okay? So right now, on average, it’s taking about 24 months to get a hearing date and if you get your case expedited it means that it’s basically taking less than 24 months. Now, that may not seem like a lot, you know, if you’re waiting 18 months, if you’re waiting 12 months-
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: -but trust me, when you have no income, no way to support yourself, you’re not working, you’re either getting little or nothing from the VA, every single month counts and it counts a lot. That pretty much goes for all of our clients.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: But the fact that they’re making this special accommodation for veterans, that’s pretty huge.
Shelly Mark: Yep, definitely.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So another special accommodation would be maybe like their age taken-
Shelly Mark: That is correct. In a lot of cases with veterans, younger individuals are awarded due to the severity of their medical conditions. You know, sometimes the age factor is kind of loosened a little bit and in a lot of cases with veterans, we win the cases based on listings, which we talked about earlier on. Which is where the medical condition is so severe that it doesn’t matter how old they are, Social Security’s going to say they’re disabled.
Natalia Jofre: And how about education, how would that factor in? Because we talked about education before as well.
Shelly Mark: Right. Yeah, well, education, you know, for Social Security purposes, if we have a client that’s going to school on a full-time basis, usually we have to tell them that we’re not going to be able to help you because Social Security equates a full-time student as having a full-time job. In cases with veterans, we will take cases where veterans are going to school full time and we will argue to the judge, to Social Security, that this is a transition period for the veteran. They’re coming out of the military, whether they were Infantry or whatever their position was, they’re no longer able to do it and they don’t have any other skills, so they have to be re-educated or retrained before they can re-enter the work force. So the full-time school for the veterans is definitely something that we can work with.
Natalia Jofre: The one other big difference that we see for veterans, which is sort of a pretty big exception to the rule, is when there is drugs or alcohol involved in their claim. Social Security, they do not like those cases, okay?
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: I mean, in general, they feel like, “We’re not going to pay you so that you can go out and drink or you can go out and do drugs.” Where we see a huge exception is for veterans, especially those that are transitioning back or have psychiatric problems, and the general sense, I guess, would be that they understand that many times veterans are self-medicating to deal with a lot of the trauma that they’ve suffered and have related problems. And so, even though it’s not something they’re thrilled about or something that they necessarily want to condone, it is sometimes something that we see is comprehended and handled differently, and that they can potentially be approved if they feel as if though it’s almost a side effect of their disability, would you-
Shelly Mark: Right. Right. Or being used as a coping mechanism or self-medicating or something like that. And of course, the judges also want to see a move forward to move away from that, so whether there’s counseling or treatment or detox or whatever it may be, just to show that the individual is trying to change those habits.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So sometimes maybe in a claimant that isn’t a veteran they’ll say, you know, “You’ve been drinking for two years now, I don’t necessarily believe that you’re going to be rehabilitated,” whereas too if the veteran’s doing that and they see that okay, they’re trying to move away from this drug or alcohol abuse and actually get clean and sober and get proper treatment then that’s something that they’re normally happy about and it could really help their claim.
Shelly Mark: Right, yeah.  And just one other little tidbit, if the claimant has not been found unemployable by the VA and their Social Security claim is approved for total disability that is definitely something that will also, in turn, help their VA claim.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So there’s actually other benefits that you can qualify for once you’re found disabled as a veteran, so we’ll talk about that in another video because that can get real lengthy. But as of for today, we thank you for watching, if you have any questions regarding whether you could qualify or not feel free to call us or visit our website, hillandponton.com. And we thank you for being here.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Can I receive both VA and SS disability?

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Natalia: Welcome to the Hill & Ponton Social Security Disability blog. I’m Natalia Jofre, the Social Security Director at our firm.
Shelly: My name is Shelly Mark. I am the Senior Social Security Attorney here at the firm.
Natalia: Today we’re going to talk a little bit about veteran’s disability benefits and how you can get those in combination with social security disability. How does that work? How does it get offset? Does it get offset? Can you get both? There’s an array of questions. We do veteran’s disability claims here at Hill & Ponton and we also do social security disability, so just those two types of disability. We don’t do any other type of law, so of course, we have that question come up a lot. We realize talking about this on our own, this could really branch out to all sorts of different topics, so we’re going to do a little mini-series. There’ll be several videos explaining different aspects of this, but I guess to kick it off, do you want to talk a little bit about what you find?
Shelly: Sure. Anyone that’s receiving VA benefits can definitely apply for social security disability. As long as the VA benefits that they are receiving are service contacted, then receiving the disability from social security in conjunction with that will not have any negative effect. If they’re receiving a pension from the VA, which is more of an income based program, probably a lot fewer people are receiving that, but in that situation we’re going to have to look and see, which is the higher amount because it will affect their benefit. It will reduce it.
Natalia: Yeah. That pension is also known as non-service connected benefits and so people say, “Will my non-service connected benefits be affected by social security disability?” The answer is, yes because non-service connected benefits are income based and they’re affected by income and vice versa. If you’re getting SSI, which is social security’s income based benefit, then that benefit can be affected by any income including your veteran’s non-service connected benefits, so I guess the take away regarding this part, in particular, is, it depends on which benefit you’re getting from social security whether it’s going to be affected or not and whether you non-service connected benefits going to be affected or not.
Shelly: Yeah. I’d say, with us, probably 90 plus percent of our cases are veterans that are service connected and we’re able to file their disability claims with social security so that they can receive both. I’ve had someone ask me before, “Does that mean I’m double dipping?” Absolutely not. Your VA service connection is paid to you because of injuries you sustained on active duty and your social security disability, that is like an insurance premium that you paid while we were working, so there’s absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing both.
Natalia: Yeah. Obviously, if you’re disabled, this could help you immensely.
Shelly: Right.
Natalia: The takeaway here is, if you’re a veteran that’s disabled, apply for social security disability. Why deny yourself that benefit? Don’t try to figure it out on your own. Have the application taken, if you don’t qualify, you’re going to be told why that is, but if it’s for any reason, other than income, so if they’re saying medical, you’re not disabled enough, you haven’t been out of work enough, whatever, we can help you with all that. Or, you can pursue the claim on your own, okay, but, the point being, don’t assume that there’s going to be an offset.
Shelly: Right.
Natalia: Because most of the time, in the cases that we handle, there are not and you can get two full benefits.
Shelly: Right.
Natalia: That’s huge.
Shelly: Exactly. Definitely.
Natalia: Which also means that you get insurance, medicare, in addition to your ability to get treatment through the VA.
Shelly: That’s correct.
Natalia: That’s a whole other topic. We’ll talk about that in another video. For now, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time.
Shelly: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Filling Out Your Work History Report

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Natalia Jofre: Welcome to the Hill and Ponton Social Security Blog. I’m Natalia Jofre, the Social Security Director for our firm.
Shelly Mark: My name is Shelly Mark and I’m the Senior Social Security Attorney with the firm.
Natalia Jofre: Today we’re going to talk about work history reports. You’ll recall that in a previous video we talked about the importance of work and how it gets taken into consideration when evaluating if a person can be found disabled or not. What they base that decision on, what they base the evaluation of what work you’ve done, how you’ve done it, how long you did it, all of that is based on the work history report.
Shelly Mark: Right. That’s correct and that form is sent pretty early to clients to fill out and I don’t think it’s really expressed to them very well how important it is that it be filled out accurately that early on.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah, extremely important report. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the few pieces of evidence that we’ll see like as soon as you apply for benefits. Okay? They’re going to send you a summary of your claim, all of the statements you made over the phone, how that appears on your application, you have to sign that, we’ll talk about that in some other video. Then they send you a bunch of forms to fill out and people just willy nilly put all sorts of stuff in there, they don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. They leave a lot of blank spaces, I don’t remember where I worked, I don’t remember what I did, I don’t remember how long I did it, I don’t remember the dates and then they really don’t pay attention to things like how long did you sit? How long did you stand? How long did you walk? How much weight did you lift and carry? Did you bend? Did you crouch? Did you stoop? Yes. They ask you all of those questions.
Shelly Mark: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: One of the things that we notice a lot, people make the mistake where they’ll say, “Oh, I worked eight hours so I sat for eight hours and I walked for eight hours and I stood for eight hours,” and that’s not really accurate, they’re looking at okay in an eight hour work day, how many of those hours did you sit? How many hours of those did you stand? How many did you walk? The truth is that the more time you spent doing difficult work or like standing and walking, it’s going to, I would say in a way help your claim, I mean we want you to always tell the truth but it’s going to be considered versus if you were basically able to sit down and comfortably do your work in a seated position, if that’s the case for you, obviously.
Shelly Mark: Right. Yeah. I think moving forward from when you get the form at the very beginning of the claim and then what I see at hearings, a lot of times are a lot of inaccuracies as far as the physical requirements, like you’re talking about and then also the actual job itself. You can hurt your credibility with these. If you fill out the work history form one way and submit that to social security but then testify differently at a hearing after counsel from an attorney or someone else, it can hurt your credibility and put the judge in a position where he’s not sure which one is accurate. It’s really important to, with our clients, we assist them with filling these forms out, we talk to them exactly about what was your job title? But go further than that and say, “What were your job duties?”
  The job duties are more important than the job title because a lot of times a job title is deceiving in what the person was actually doing on a daily basis. I would encourage anyone to get assistance with filling these forms out but on the flip side of that make sure that whoever is assisting you with this form is accurately reporting what you’re telling them. I’ve had clients where their social workers at maybe a behavioral health center or something had assisted them with filling the forms out and they were not accurate at all. I think it’s just really important with this to realize that this form is going to follow you all the way through, if you have to go to a hearing, it’s going to be a very important file that the judge is going to be looking at during your hearing.
Natalia Jofre: There have been hearings where the claimant will testify for a good 30, 40 minutes and then the judge will like whip out this report and say, “That’s not what you said when we asked you about this and it wasn’t until you got an attorney that you basically changed your tune,” and what’s actually happening is, when we’re explaining the questions to the claimant and what it is that social security is asking for, that then they’re realizing oh, wait a minute. We’ve had claims, a good example is a receptionist and they’re like, “No, I sat all day and I answered the phones.” What else did you do? Oh I didn’t, lifting, carrying, no. I don’t what people are thinking and that’s just it, people are not doing this maliciously, they’re doing it unintentionally and they’re hurting their claims. So it’s like, did you have to ever pick up those huge crates of copy paper and load copy paper into the copier? Oh yeah, every day. Did you ever have to carry boxes of files? Oh yeah, every day. Did you sit all day long? Well, no. Every time a client came in, I would walk them back to the conference room. So all of a sudden, it’s like the dynamic of what the job they actually did was very different from what they wrote down because all they wrote down was I sat for eight hours and I didn’t do any lifting and carrying.
Shelly Mark: Right. At the beginning of your claim with social security, I wouldn’t say that they’re looking for a reason to deny the claim but they’re not necessarily looking strongly for a reason to grant. If you are very vague in what you did, if you just put down, let’s say office help and you just put that, they’re going to classify that as a sedentary position. If it really wasn’t a sedentary position and you were doing a lot more than that, it’s going to take going to a hearing with a judge to clarify before they change what they have labeled your past work as.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. Those blank spaces, like we see people that leave a lot of blank spaces in their form, that really hurts them because one of two things is going to happen. It’s either going to really delay your case because they’re going to say, “You didn’t give us the information we wanted or we needed to properly evaluate your claim,” then they might hound you for a little bit or if you get a person that doesn’t really care, it happens a lot, they’re going to look at that blank space and say, “insufficient evidence,” or “insufficient information, I’m just going to deny it and hey, better luck next time. Maybe next time you’ll actually tell us what we’re asking you for.”
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Either way, not good.
Shelly Mark: Yes.
Natalia Jofre: So, work history report, take-away; be very accurate and specific in what you’re describing as your past work duties. Of course, like always, if you have questions about this or anything else related to a possible disability claim, feel free to contact us. Our website’s hillandponton.com
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Natalia Jofre: Thanks for watching, we’ll see you next time.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – A Combination of Impairments

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Natalia Jofre: Welcome to the Social Security Disability blog by Hill and Ponton. I’m Natalia Jofre, the Social Security Section Director for our law firm.
Shelly Mark: My name is Shelly Mark. I’m the senior Social Security attorney with the firm.
Natalia Jofre: So today we’re going to be talking about medical conditions and what they’re defined as, how they’re evaluated and one of the biggest things that we see is like people come in and say I want to file for disability for physical disability or I want to file for mental disability or I only want to file for my back or I only want to file because I have bipolar disorder and that’s not really how it works.
Shelly Mark: That’s correct. So just like Natalia is saying, with Social Security they’re going to be looking at a combination of your symptoms and how a combination of everything would or would not prevent you from working on a full time basis.
Natalia Jofre: So the more ailments you have, as silly as that may seem, the more likelihood … It’s almost as if, though, it starts checking off you can’t do this job, you can’t do that job. So for example, let’s say you were a secretary or an administrative assistant because you have a wider scope. So in other words, you have to be writing reports, plus you have to be answering the phones, plus you have to be dealing with people as they come in. All these other things.
And so if you have severe carpal tunnel syndrome and let’s say you’ve had failed surgeries and you still have severe numbness and tingling and weakness in your arms and you really can’t type for prolonged periods of time without it becoming excruciating, well, that knocks off that job duty.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: And then you have an anxiety disorder and suffer from depression. So it’s hard for you to get out of bed in the morning to begin with and then on top of that every time you talk to people you start to get anxious or if you have too many people come in at once you get very frazzled and you start having heart palpitations because it causes anxiety. Well, you really can’t do that aspect of the job anymore either.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: And then what else did I say?
Shelly Mark: No, that’s a good example because that’s an example where you have physical limitations that prevent certain type of work and then you also may have some behavioral or emotional conditions that may prevent or limit other types of work. Just it is always a combination of everything that Social Security is looking at and there is a lot of times when people are injured or something happens to where they’re no longer able to work, people may get sad, become depressed, have a lot of anxiety about the fact that they don’t have any income or whatever, their family, how they’re going to provide. And I have a lot of people tell me I’m not depressed. I don’t have depression. I’m just upset because I can’t work.
That would be situational depression but it’s still going to be taken into consideration because it is still a real thing even though it may be for a shorter duration of time. It may have just started. But we do want to talk about that with social security too because it is going to have an impact.
Natalia Jofre: We see that a lot with people that have back claims. They’ve always been very physically fit or active or able to work. A construction worker is a perfect example. They’re used to, you know, doing a man’s man’s job. And you know hard labor and all that stuff and all of a sudden they find that they have an accident on I-4 or wherever they may be and they can’t get off the couch and they can’t work and all of a sudden they’re severely depressed because they can’t do anything.
That’s still a problem.
Shelly Mark: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: And don’t you find that sometimes the side effects from the medications also cause some of these-
Shelly Mark: Absolutely.
Natalia Jofre: -effects? Yeah.
Shelly Mark: Yeah, definitely. Side effects of medications are definitely going to be taken into consideration as well because you know, a lot of times they cause a lot of fatigue, confusion, fogginess. So, that’s definitely going to impact the ability to work as well.
Natalia Jofre: We have actually had clients, even clients that have won by the way, and they’ll get very upset. They’ll say I filed for disability for my heart condition. Why is Social Security asking me about my back? I’m not filing for disability for my back. Yeah, my back hurts and I have a hard time with it and I have to take medication for it but that’s not why I’m filing for disability. I’m filing for disability because I had to have open heart surgery.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Well, the truth is that you have a small window of time where a cardiac condition will actually be considered. I’m just using this as an example. I mean you can have a multitude of different examples and different combination of impairments. But Social Security is going to look at it and they’re going to say you know what? After you have your open heart surgery, now that your arteries are clear and your blood is pumping and your ejection faction has, you know, improved, why can’t you work anymore?
Well, if you have to have a very sedentary job, but now you also have this back condition which precludes you from sitting for a prolonged period of time, boom, there you have it. You really can’t do any type of work or maybe any other type of work you’ve done in the past.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: So, that just kind of shows how the different conditions affect the different abilities to do a job.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Right.
Shelly Mark: Exactly.  Even if it’s not your primary disability or it’s not what you believe prevents you from working the most, it still needs to be evaluated. That way it can be used when they are determining whether or not there is any other work you could do.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So the take away is when you’re filing for disability benefits, make sure that you list each and every one of your disabilities, even if you don’t feel like they’re a disability. If it’s just a condition, you know. You have some ringing in the ear, and you have mild carpal tunnel, and I have two bulging discs in my neck, and I sometimes lose sensation in my feet, but my real problem is bipolar disorder. You list it all and then let Social Security figure it out. Let the doctors figure it out. Let us figure it out, whether, you know, it’s going to affect you or help you with your claim. Most times than not it’s going to help.
Shelly Mark: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah.
Shelly Mark: Yes.
Natalia Jofre: All right. Well, thanks for watching. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. Our website is HillandPonton.com, and we’ll see you next time.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – SS Education Level Factors

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Natalia Jofre: Hi and welcome to the Social Security disability blog from Hill and Ponton. My name is Natalia Jofre. I’m the director for our Social Security section.
Shelly Mark: I’m Shelly Mark. I am the senior attorney, Social Security attorney here with the firm.
Natalia Jofre: Today we want to talk to you a little bit about education and how that affects your disability claim. It is a huge factor. We’ve talked about long your disability’s gonna last, how they look at your past work, what your age is. I would say that education is as important.
Shelly Mark: Definitely. It’s a huge factor that Social Security’s gonna look at from the very beginning of the claim too. It’s something that you want to make sure that you report correctly.
Natalia Jofre: That’s one of the biggest problems that we see with education, is because people, when they haven’t had a very high level of education, they tend to be embarrassed about it and a lot of people, I hate to say lie, but it’s honestly what it happens.
Shelly Mark: They’ll overstate.
Natalia Jofre: Overstate or they’re untruthful about the actual year they completed. So, I guess rewinding a little bit, when Social Security asks you the highest level of education, they’re referring to the last year you completed of schooling.
Shelly Mark: That’s correct. I had a client just this morning in the hearing, say that they had completed the 10th grade or that their highest level of education was 10th grade. In fact, they had only completed the ninth grade. They had actually only gone into the 10th grade a couple of months, so their highest level of education would be a ninth grade education.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. So, what they’ll do is they’ll say, “Oh, 10th grade because I started the 10th grade, I didn’t necessarily finish it,” and of course Social Security isn’t gonna go out of their way to explain to you, “No, listen. We really want you to tell us. What grade did you complete?” The lower your education level, the more favorable it is for your case.
Shelly Mark: In a lot of situations, that is correct. In some situations, the higher education may play into it but that’s gonna be for individuals that are over 55 and have some skilled work. For the most part, the lower the education is definitely gonna be more favorable. It also causes the judges, and us as advocates, to ask some additional questions like why did you stop going to school in the ninth grade? Were you in special education classes? What was going on and why didn’t you complete your education? It can lead to learning about some learning disabilities or maybe behavioral problems that someone was having during that time.
Natalia Jofre: We’ve also seen that in disabled adult child claims, which are for adults who need to prove that they were disabled between the ages of 18-22 and if they were so ill while they were in high school and they weren’t really able to complete it. At that point, their parents felt like they’re never really gonna be able to work anyway, so why keep pushing them go to school. It can become a factor in many ways.
Shelly Mark: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: One of the biggest things that we do want to address is people many times when they’re filing their disability claims, it’s almost like they feel like they’re applying for a job. They want to beautify this resume like, “I did all of these managerial things and I have this level of education.” Or people, just so that they could get a job for years put on resumes or on applications that they have a high school education when in fact, they don’t.
Shelly Mark: That’s true. Yeah, and there’s individuals that have received their GED, a lot of times will automatically say they have a high school education and there is a difference there. Especially if someone received their GED but they did so years and years after high school. If you did get a GED, there’s nothing wrong with actually putting GED down instead of high school diploma because there can be a difference there.
Natalia Jofre: I guess the take away here is, this is the time for you to be as honest as possible about what is the last grade you actually completed when you’re applying for disability benefits because it could make a big difference in your case.
Shelly Mark: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: Okay great. Well, we’ll see you next time. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions or are interested in pursuing a claim or just have questions about a claim, feel free to contact our office or visit our website. Hillandponton.com Thank you and we’ll see you next time.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Sequential Eval Process – Step 5 – Retirement Age

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Natalia Jofre: Welcome to the Hill & Ponton Social Security Disability blog. I’m Natalia Jofre. I’m the Director for the Social Security Section here at Hill & Ponton.
Shelly Mark: I’m Shelly Mark. I’m the Senior Social Security Attorney here.
Natalia Jofre: So last few blogs, we’ve been talking about age, there are categories, the fact that depending on how old you are, how social security’s going to evaluate your claim. I mean, it is a huge determining factor. So we talked about the different categories, which were younger individual, 18 to 49, closely approaching advanced age, which is 50 to 54. Then we talked about advanced age, which is 55 to 59. And then that bring us to closely approaching retirement age, which is 60 to 64ish, because technically speaking, now the retiring age continues to go up.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: But the categories currently are still the same. So technically speaking, generally speaking, normally. The older you are the easier it is to get disability benefits. Or, at least it’s supposed to be.
Shelly Mark: Correct.
Natalia Jofre: Or, that’s the way it was for a very long time.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Now we’re seeing some nuances here, with people that are 60 and older.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: So would you still say that if you’re 60 before age 62. So 60 to 62 still have much better chances of being approved?
Shelly Mark: I think so. I mean, I think that it does vary. It’s definitely going to depend on the judge that you’re before. I think what we’re seeing happening is, when individuals are 62, especially sometimes in situations where they’ve already drawn off their early retirement, there is a little bit of a tendency amongst some judges to deny those claims. I believe the rationale there would be that they’re assuming that this person has stopped working for retirement reasons rather than disability. However, like you just said. If you filed your claim at 60, and you’re still waiting for a hearing, and you had to get your early retirement for survival, I think that’s a little bit-
Natalia Jofre: Right.
Shelly Mark: That’s a different story.
Natalia Jofre: Right.
Shelly Mark: If you waited until you were 62, took your early retirement and then decided to file disability at the same time, then I think you have a more difficult argument to make. Was it based on the fact that you wanted to retire? Or, was it based on the fact that you had a disability? So I would encourage anyone that’s in their upper-50’s or 61ish, 62, if you’re in that age group, you definitely want to go ahead and file your disability claim. Don’t wait. It will be easier to prove the claim if you get the claim in before you’re 62.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah. And I think that part of what you said, I mean, a lot of people that file for early retirement, are filing for early retirement out of sheer need.
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: I mean, they really are disabled, and they’ve been trying to hold on, and probably their job has been making some modification for them, so that they can get to age 62. And basically, by the time that he turned 62, it’s like they’ve crossed that finish line like, “Oh, I’ve finally made it, but it’s been really difficult.” And they’re filing for early retirement because they really can’t work anymore because of their disabilities, and they need some sort of income to basically support themselves, and they can’t hold out until they’re 65, or 66, 67, whatever their normal retirement age is.
Shelly Mark: The early retirement is a blessing for people in situations like that. And just because they have a claim pending and they have to draw off their early retirement, by no means does that mean disability will not be approved. It definitely can still be approved. And it’s super important to have it approved because you will be entitled to Medicare after a waiting period. If you simply go on early retirement, you’re going to have a little bit of income coming in, but you’re not going to get your Medicare then.
Natalia Jofre: Until age 65.
Shelly Mark: That’s correct.
Natalia Jofre: So that’s a huge, huge point. Whereas, to with … Once you’ve proven disabled, you can get it within two years. But, one of the things that you said was, why are you going on early retirement? And I think that the reason some people are having issues now, is because the judges are saying, “Well, are you basically just claiming disability because you don’t really want to work anymore?”
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: So that’s the distinction. That’s what they’re trying to figure out. Are you not working anymore because you don’t really want to work anymore? Because you want to play golf a little bit more?
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Because you want to shop a little bit more? Or, are you filing for early retirement because you can’t work anymore, and now this is going to be basically your source of income?
Shelly Mark: Right.
Natalia Jofre: Lots of reasons, and I mean, that is a whole another video regarding early retirement, what happens, filing for disability and early retirement at the same time. So we could talk about that in a next video blog.
Shelly Mark: Absolutely. My just word of advice on in that age group, would just be go ahead and file.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah.
Shelly Mark: Don’t put off filing. If you feel like you’re disabled and you can’t work anymore, then you definitely want to go ahead and file the disability claim.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah, that’s really good. All right. Well, thanks for being with us. If you have any questions, feel free to visit our website or call our office. Otherwise, we’ll see you next time.
Shelly Mark: Thank you.
Shelly Mark, Senior Attorney

Video Blog – Sequential Eval Process – Step 5 – Advanced Age

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Natalia Jofre: Welcome to the Hill and Ponton disability blog. I’m Natalia Jofre. I’m the Social Security Director here at Hill and Ponton.
Shelly Campbell: I’m Shelly Campbell. I’m the Senior Social Security Attorney at the firm.
Natalia Jofre: The last couple of blogs, we’ve been talking about age and how it affects your disability claim. Really big deal, because it’s going to determine which category you’re in.
Shelly Campbell: Exactly, which will then determine which rules are going to apply when they’re evaluating your claim.
Natalia Jofre: Quick recap, 18 to 49, younger individual, hardest category to be in.
Shelly Campbell: Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: Age 50 to 54, closely approaching advanced age, gray area.
Shelly Campbell: Correct.
Natalia Jofre: Then we get to advanced age, which is age 55 to 59.
Shelly Campbell: That is correct.
Natalia Jofre: Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Shelly Campbell: Sure. That is the most favorable age group for Social Security, for sure. That’s because at 55, Social Security realizes that you have a certain skillset at that point, and the likelihood that an employer is going to retrain someone when they’re that close to retirement is really low. As you had mentioned on an earlier video, if we can prove that the person’s over 55, they cannot perform their past work, and that they don’t have any transferable skills to work that would accommodate them, then they’re disabled by statute. It doesn’t always go that smoothly.
Natalia Jofre: Yeah, because you said “by statute” …
Shelly Campbell: Right.
Natalia Jofre: … so what you mean is …
Shelly Campbell: The law.
Natalia Jofre: Technically speaking …
Shelly Campbell: Exactly.
Natalia Jofre: … according to the law, they should be found disabled.
Shelly Campbell: That’s correct.
Natalia Jofre: There’s a reason why there are so many attorneys practicing Social Security law, because what should happen isn’t what actually happens normally.
Shelly Campbell: That’s correct.
Natalia Jofre: That’s where you come in.
Shelly Campbell: Right.
Natalia Jofre: You break it down and basically explain this is transferable, this is not. They can’t be retrained.
Shelly Campbell: Right. That’s exactly right. The clarification or the analysis really occurs at the hearing, most times.
Natalia Jofre: Because normally at the initial and reconsideration level, they’re really not … They’re supposed to look at it.
Shelly Campbell: They’re supposed to. That’s correct.
Natalia Jofre: Supposed to look at it. They’re supposed to look at it, but one of the things that you touched on … And I think we need to talk a lot more about this in a different blog … is where you talked about misclassification.
Shelly Campbell: Right. Definitely.
Natalia Jofre: That’s huge.
Shelly Campbell: It’s a really big deal, and it happens a lot. With our clients that we start cases with early on, we counsel them, we assist them, we help them complete those work history forms. It is a big deal. I’ve had a judge in a hearing find a client not credible because their testimony did not match that work history report, which we did not help them with. It is very, very important to take that form very seriously.
Natalia Jofre: Okay. That’s a big deal. We’ll probably talk about that in a separate blog. We’ll dedicate it to that, basically explain how you fill that out. It’s not about a right or wrong answer. It’s about people not understanding the question. Wouldn’t you say that?
Shelly Campbell: That’s correct.  Absolutely.  Also, just one other thing for this age category. This is the age category to where if you have always performed highly skilled work and you have maybe some non-exertional issues or limitations which would be behavioral or emotional or things like that preventing your type of work, Social Security is not allowed to say that you can perform unskilled work.
This is a situation to where if you had someone that was performing really high skilled work, and let’s say for whatever reason they were injured, and now they’re having to take a bunch of pain medication or they’re just in pain all the time, the difficulty that they would have with their focus and concentration would prevent them from sustaining work that would require that type of detail. In those situations, these people would be once again, disabled by statute.
Natalia Jofre: I can think of one easily, which would be a traumatic brain injury, right?
Shelly Campbell: Absolutely.
Natalia Jofre: Happen all the time in car accidents, and so then …
Shelly Campbell: Right. Correct. Veterans as well. Any kind of highly skilled work and then traumatic brain injury or PTSD or anxiety disorders. This age group is where any of those issues is going to assist more in finding the claimant disabled.
Natalia Jofre: Okay. Great. Next blog, we’ll talk about closely approaching retirement age or retirement age, and we’ll talk about that and how that all works.
Shelly Campbell: Sounds good.
Natalia Jofre: All right. Great. Thanks for joining us. If you have any questions or are interested in pursuing a claim, feel free to visit our website hillandponton.com or call our office. Thanks for visiting with us.
Shelly Campbell: Thank you.