| Shelly Mark: | Hello and welcome to Hill and Ponton Social Security and Disability Blog. I’m Natalia Jofre, the director for our Social Security Section. |
| Natalia Jofre: | And, I am Shelly Mark. I am the Senior Social Security Attorney. |
| Shelly Mark: | So, in our last few blogs, we’ve talked about what happens at your hearing, getting your decision, when it’s a fully favorable decision, when it’s a partially favorable decision, and now, unfortunately, we’re going to talk about what happens if you get an unfavorable decision, which basically means, you lost. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Basically, means that your case has been denied by the judge. |
| Shelly Mark: | Yeah. |
| Natalia Jofre: | So, you’re not going to be entitled to any benefits. No past due benefits and no future benefits. |
| Shelly Mark: | So, you have several options. I mean, first of all, I think that we should talk a little bit about … we have seen many cases where the person is genuinely disabled. Did everything right. Should have been approved. Is truly and genuinely disabled. Had the medical evidence to prove it. You know, we’ve had cases where get the decision and we’re just like “How did this happen?” |
| Natalia Jofre: | Right. |
| Shelly Mark: | And, so it’s not, unfortunately, I mean, some judges do have higher and lower approval ratings than others. Right? |
| Natalia Jofre: | Right. |
| Shelly Mark: | So, sometimes that’s a factor. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Oh, absolutely, and certain jurisdictions have judges that are more favorable/less favorable, so location plays a part. You know, there’s so many different reasons, but just like Natalia said, I mean the reality is we have very good cases. We have strict criteria with our intake and we get unfavorable decisions. So, we’re in the situation where we have to counsel the client on what do we feel like we’re going to do next. |
| In most cases, with our clients, there is always a next step because we do feel like the person is really disabled and something just happened. I guess the judge just disagreed with us or maybe the judge didn’t feel like there was enough evidence to prove the claim or, maybe the judge felt like there was some work out there that the person could do. | |
| Shelly Mark: | Right, because sometimes, you know, you have a vocational expert in the hearing and so maybe, sometimes, you get a vocational expert, which obviously you didn’t hire. They’re hired by the judge. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Right. |
| Shelly Mark: | That comes off, out with this off the wall job they feel the person can do or the medical expert, you know, talks about some evidence. And, sometimes we’ve seen judges hyper-focus on a negative piece of evidence and almost disregard everything else that was supportive of a finding of disability. Because, we pride ourselves on really … |
| Natalia Jofre: | Strong … |
| Shelly Mark: | Yes. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Strong cases. |
| Shelly Mark: | We’re really are thorough in our evaluation of cases and we don’t want to represent people that aren’t legitimately disabled. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Right. |
| Shelly Mark: | So when we go to a hearing, you know, it’s because we really do feel that they should be found disabled. |
| Natalia Jofre: | One thing that I would say, too, with these unfavorable decisions is that clients get really upset when they read them. Understandably so. This is their life, and they find … what they always tell me is this isn’t fair. The judge didn’t talk about the appointments that I had with my orthopedic or they didn’t talk about everything that I said about how difficult it is for me to walk. And, I just always tell my clients. You have to try to remember if you can, that this is like an outcome based opinion. |
| What I mean by that is, the judge has made a decision whether he’s going to deny or grant the claim and then, like you were talking about in our last video, it then goes to the decision writers. So, this decision writer has to go through the file, and put into the decision the evidence that supports the judges finding. | |
| Shelly Mark: | Mm-hmm (affirmative)- |
| Natalia Jofre: | So, it does tend to be a very one-sided decision. |
| Shelly Mark: | Right. |
| Natalia Jofre: | That doesn’t mean that those things weren’t in the file. It doesn’t mean that the judge didn’t take them into consideration. It’s just, in a lot of cases, they may not be very accurately reflected. |
| Shelly Mark: | Yeah. And, sometimes we do get unfavorable decisions when, for example, the person was authentically disabled, but for example, they were unable to have ongoing medical treatment because they couldn’t afford it. Or, they were younger and now they’re a little bit older, but for the period of time that they were claiming disability, the judge still felt that they should be able to do some type of work because they were considered a younger individual. So sometimes, when the circumstances change, they can then file a new claim, which is one of the options and, basically have a much better chance of being approved in a new case. |
| But, we’ll save that for our next blog. So, the next blog, we’re going to talk about: what can you do. What appeals can you file, what happens at those levels, or is filing a new claim, perhaps, a better option for you? So, we’ll talk about that next time. | |
| Natalia Jofre: | Okay. |
| Shelly Mark: | In the meantime, if you have questions, feel free to visit our website or call our office and we thank you for joining us. |
| Natalia Jofre: | Thank you. |
