Lets talk about Social Security Disability fraud

0:01 Hello everybody. My name is Attorney Anthony Reeves with the Reeves Law Firm www. Dot Reevesfirm dot com, and I'm here to give you another helpful legal pied tip of the day. I had a question posed to me and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the Social Security Fraud Investigation Unit. Interestingly enough, I got an email. I want to thank whoever the gentleman who actually had the opportunity to view my videos who actually sent me a message and asked me about the fraud unit. And he was astually asking, if you're receiving Social Security disability benefit and you're being watched by the fraud unit, if the fraud unit makes a determination that something is not right, is there a possibility that your benefits can be in jeopardy. Let me be the

0:44 first to tell you one thing. Short answer is yeah, it really good. Let me explain this. Despite the fact that you believe that you've been paying to the system which you have, or you've been receiving benefits, whether it be because of a deceased, least loved one, or scide benefits, you're dealing with a program, a federal program that is administering funds to you through a federal program. So in esstence, you're dealing with federal funds, and anytime you're dealing with the federal government and they're handling up federal funds, they have an interest in ensuring that nobody out they're running dirty. All right, So here's a couple of things that you need to be aware. First, if you're applying for the disability process, is there a possibility that you

1:30 can be investigated by the Fraud Union? Yes? If you receive disability benefits, is it a possibility that you could be investigated for fraud by the Social Security Administration? Yes? Will you know you're being investigated? Not while they're doing the investigation, because that defeats the purpose of them being able to investigate.

1:48 How will you know if you're being investigated, Well, typically you'll get alerted after they've completed their investigation. And let me tell you how it typically comes into play. This is one of the things that I tell people all the time. Social Security looks for consistency, and the important thing is you want to be honest and you want to be consistent. Inconsistency typically will alert Social Security that there may be a problem. Now I want you to listen carefully because this is not a broadcast that's designed to give you the tools to try to fake out the Social Security system. First of all, it's almost impossible to do so because when they're updating your records or looking at your medical

2:29 records, they can find inconsistencies there. So if you're saying one thing and they notice and they records say something else, something else, that's something that can alert them. Two, most people are not smart enough and I'm not trying to be nasty. Most people are not start smart to be consistent over a long period of time when it comes to multitudes of paperwork. That's part of the reason why Social Security gives you such a large amount of paperwork.

2:52 They're looking to see if you're consistent in the things that you say, and don't be slick and think I'm just going to go ahead and copy what I had and the last time. The questions are design so that you can't just merely copy, cut and paste. So it's important to remember. Now what usually happens is that there is an investigator will do videotaping, and yes, they do use videotape when they're investigating you for fraud. And typically what they're doing is they're monitoring different behaviors from different venues, for instance. And you got to keep this in mind. Say, for instance, you say that your back is hurting and you need a cane and you can't walk without a cane, and you're just in really bad shape, and you go to Social

3:30 Security and they set you up for an evaluation. You come there with a cane, but then as you walk outside to go to your car, you take your cane, put it on your back, and you just hop the skip jump all back to the car, back to your car. You might have a problem because they may be watching. Now. Some of you out there may say, well, I'll just be slick, I'll just I'll play the acting game all the way through. Trust me when I tell you when you're going before doctors, and doctors are evaluating your situation, they can tell if they think you are malingering. And that's another word for saying faking.

4:03 So this is why I always tell people you cannot fake out the federal government. The process was designed so that you couldn't do it. People always try and don't know why they knew because I tell them the same thing all the time you can't do it. But that's a whole different story. Let's just focus on the fact of the fraudit. Typically what they'll do is they will will investigate you for a period of time, they will alert Social Security to their findings, and in most instance, they'll give you the opportunity, meaning we've conducted this investigation, we've seen these things, and then you have the opportunity to respond to those Now it's tricky because usually they'll give you access to what they had and you have to be responsible enough to demonstrate what it was

4:44 that was going on at the time when they were videotaping you, or at the time they were monitoring you, or the time they were evaluating your medical records. This way because they're using this as information to determine whether or not they think you've committed fraud. Now that's looking at it from the standpoint.

5:00 Let's say you're applying for disability benefits. What's the overall impact of this, Well, it may be used as evidence to demonstrate that you're not to say, which basically will kill your ability to get disability benefits. Now, what about the other side. Let's say you're getting disability benefits and there's a reason that the Social Security Administration believes that you might be running dirt. Well, now you've got a bigger problem because they could also they could use any evidence that they have to demonstrate that your disability benefits should stop. We'll talk about this on future broadcast about what types of things will let them know that maybe they need to stop your benefits. But fraud is a big one. So

5:35 one, they can stop your benefits. Two, depending on what they observe and what their findings are. You may hold the government money because if they look back and they as a result of their investigation, they make a determination that there may be more things they need to look at, you might be opening up with a domino effect where they may look and say, you know what, maybe you shouldn't have received disability benefits at all. So keep that in the backuum mind. The one thing you need to be aware of is this Social Security is a federal program. Anytime you're dealing with a federal governmental program there administers any type of benefits, you have the risk of being investigated by fraud. Am I saying that everybody who gets disability benefits or applies for

6:19 it is going to be investigated. Absolutely not. They don't have the resources to do that. You just need to be aware that if you put information in your file, or you conduct activities, or if you do things that raises into question whether or not you're disabled. If you get noticed that you've been investigative with fraud, I would tell you don't be surprised. This is Anthony Reeves. I'm providing you my legal Beat tip of the day. You can find out more information on my blog and legal Beat dot Anthony Reeves dot com, or you can go to my website at www dot Reevesfirm dot com.

6:53 Representing the disabled and the discriminated and I hope this helps you out. You got any more questions, feel free to comment or email mail me of Anthony at Reevesfirm dot com