(REMASTERED) 11.13.2011 (Representatives; Activities of Daily living; Child support)

0:02 Good day, Good day, and welcome to another edition of Q and Day Social Security Disability Today. I am your host, Attorney Anthony Reeves, and let's go ahead and get to your question. All right. The first question, first question of the day, focuses on how much does a Social Security disability representative make. Most people don't realize that there's actually a cap on what social Security representatives can make under the law. Congress has set the cap at twenty five percent of your back pay or six thousand dollars, whichever comes less. That's for your garden variety case where someone is attempting to get disability benefits. Now, in some instances, some representatives can get the full twenty five percent. It

0:45 never goes above twenty five percent, but that's usually in a case where there's multiple appeals beyond the hearing level, meaning you've been denied by a judge and you've had to appeal the case to the appeals counsel and you've had to get it brought back down a few times. Some instances you can actually appeal to get you can actually petition Social Security for the max fee, which is twenty five percent. A lot of people don't know that the determination of whether or not you get the full twenty five percent if it exceeds six thousand dollars, is still up the discretion of Socicurity administration, and as the client, you have the right to contest that amount. So say you have a representative who you has been in your

1:28 case and they're trying to get the max fee, which means, let's say you have a case where twenty five percent is actually greater than six thousand dollars. Because Social Security automatically withholds that dollar amount, you actually have the ability to send comments to Social Security if you have a concern about your representative getting that full fee. So keep that in the back of your mind. But under normal cases, the most in a representative can get is either twenty five percent or six thousand dollars, whichever is left. Okay.

2:01 Second question has to deal with a topic that comes up fairly regularly. Do Social Security representatives cause a delay in the process in order to get more money in their fees? Okay, here's something that I have to tell people all the time. I said, first of all, let's talk about human nature. Typically, ten percent of the population makes it bad for the ninety percent of the population.

2:22 In other words, a lot of times people have this perception in their mind when they hear about representatives who drag cases out in an essence to get as much of a fee as possible. It's close to that max FI. Then they assume all the representatives do that, And so I always tell people, first of all, let me remind you of one thing. And this can be seen throughout light.

2:41 Typically it's the minority of the population that makes it bad for the majority, because what happens is you look at the worst in people and you assume that everybody does that. And I always tell people, before you assume that everybody does that, ask them first, because more likely they don't do it. It's usually those one or two bad apples that make it bad for the rest of them. Bunch. Second, of all, social security representatives are either non attorney representatives or attorneys. Most people don't know that is unethical. I mean stress this. It is unethical for an attorney to take any type of action that may cause a negative effect against their client. So, in other words, as an attorney,

3:20 it is not ethical for me to sit there and sit on my client's case in order for them in order for me to get more money at their detriment. Most people who do Social Security work, who are so security attorneys, recognize this. They want to do whatever they can to get the case moving as fast as possible.

3:36 But the reality is that the process is so slow because of the backlaws, the number of claims, and the fact that everybody is in the same bad situation. So that's the other second point. The third point is this for the non attorney reps, here's what most people fail to realize. You to be able to represent some before someone before the soci Security Administration is a privilege, not a right. There are people who have been banned from representing before the Social Security Administration, both attorneys and non attorney reps. So if you have reason to believe that you have a representative that's actively doing that action of dragging cases out to your detriment, then you can notify Social Security Administration and they will investigate accordingly. You would

4:19 be surprised. There's a lot of representatives Social Security will not acknowledge the representative because of just that fact. Here's the bottom line that I tell to everyone because whenever I get people who send me messages about you know, why is it that you know attorneys just sit over there or representatives sit over there and drag this out so they can make fat money off of disability claims for people who can't work. And I tell people all the time, but said, first of all, there are a lot more there are a lot more lucrative areas of law than social security. So most people who do social Security do it because they enjoy the work. Like I love doing what I'm doing. I have a lot of fun doing it. I'm able to make a living off

4:52 of it, so it's a blessing. But don't ever think that I'm sitting here trying to do this to the detriment of people who are sitting here homeless. You know, I represented people who've lived underneath the interstates before, and I always tell people this is the people in their worst situations. And a lot of people who do social Security are people who know in their heart they're dealing with people who are at the worst points of their lives.

5:14 So be careful of the fact that it's easy to draw the distinction that there are some people out there. And let me not be naive and not say that there's not people out there who will abuse the system and take advantage of people in bad situations. But people two things you need to be aware of. One that happens, it all pass the life. It's not unique just to people who represent Social Security claimants. And two it's usually the minority. The majority of representatives, both non attorneys and attorneys do a kick ass job of representing people in a tough situation, and so please do not lump them in with those people who abuse the system. My third question focuses on why would Social Security need to send

5:53 you to a doctor? A lot of times Social Security has the authority to send you to what they call a consultative of the life under a variety of circumstances, but the most common is either one they don't have enough evidence in order to make a determination, or too there may be a conflict within the evidence that they may need to seek to resolve. Now, some of you say, what do you mean by a conflict, Well, you got doctors from two different sides of the street giving two different opinions about a condition. Well, in a sense like this, like let's say you have one doctor says that you can't do a job, a sit down job. Well, the other doctor says you can do a job lifting fifty sixty pounds. Well, that's conflict people, So sometimes Social Security

6:31 will send you to a doctor to resolve the conflict. Secondly, is the situation where there's not enough evidence or not enough information. If you have a condition that requires a little bit of technical testing. We're not talking about X rays, MRIs, but just more technical type of testing like IQ testing or psychiatric testing, things of that nature, social Security will sometimes send you for additional evaluations just to see if they can get a little bit more clarification with regards to that. Or third they don't have enough information, Like let's say you've gone to the health clinic and they basically diagnosed you with a bad back, but there's no MRIs, no xriy raise or anything like that, and that's the

7:13 best you can do. Well, sometimes they'll send you to a Social Security doctor who will review all your records and provide an opinion about what your limitations are. So a lot of times people get caught up because they wonder in the back of their mind why am I going to a doctor anyway? It shouldn't my medical records be enough? Sometimes those Security needs it. Oh and fourthly, let me throw this out there as well, Sometimes they do it where they have a difficult time getting records from your doctor, and so they still they know you have the condition, they know you're being treated, but they're having a difficult time getting the records from your doctor.

7:46 Sometimes it's easier just for them to just set you up for a doctor's apointment on their own. Activities of daily living? Can can social Security disable to deny your disability based on your activities of daily living? Let me tell you where this pops up. This usually comes up where people are wondering why you're still getting a whole bunch of forms asking you about the things you do. Remember, social Security looks at the entirety of your disability situation.

8:19 So when they say the entirety, they also look at the disability forms that they receive from you. And the reason why is because they're trying to connect the dots. Let me give you a good example. Let's say that your doctor says that you can't do a sit down job because your back hurt. You're always you know, in pain, and because of the medication you're taking, you can't do anything basically lay down. Well, they want to look to see what you do in the course of your life to see if that actually coincides with what the doctor's saying.

8:49 So guess what if you're saying you can't do anything except barely a sit down job, but you're out there more on the lawn and washing your car and go in grocery shopping, that's conflict and they're going to to basically address how you were able to do one as opposed to what your doctor is saying you can't do another.

9:04 So your activity of daily living is why I tell people all the time when you get these forms, be as truthful and as honest and as descriptive as possible so Social Security can connect the dots to your medical records. Okay, everybody, this fifth question is kind of hyper technical, but so let me give you a little background as I'm leading to it. The question is, do you know what gives Social Security the right to continue prior suspensions even after the court has ruled against the particular particular suspension. This is talking about the Clark the as true situation. In other words, give you a little background here. Years ago, back in New York, I can't remember, I think it was the Southern District of New York, there was a

9:46 Social Security office that suspended the benefits of an individual because of an alleged probation violation, the probation and parole violation. It was not determined that he had actually violated his probation. It was just alleged that he was, so as a result, Social Security suspended his benefits. Now, for those of you who don't know, if you were considered a guest of your state institution, in other words, you're in jail, you're in prison, or there's a warrant for your arrests, you're considered to be ineligible for receiving benefits at that time.

10:23 In this case, this person was there was a warrant for alleged probation probation violish. In this instance, when it was taken into federal court, the court determined, when you really can't suspend him for an alleged violation. You had a warrant out because you thought he might have, well, he didn't actually do anything. A ward for their arrest is because you have reason to believe that they actually did it. In this instance, there was no indication that they actually thought the person actually violated. They just alleged him because they thought possibly So they won on their case there. So let's move forward to the question that's being asked, and what really you need to ask yourself is this, what have you done to get them to

11:02 reverse their decision? If you go and you say, hey, I need you to re state this and then they say no, because we has warrant under alleged parole violation and you know there's a case out there talking about it. Have you brought it to the Social Security as attention? If you haven't, how are they going to reverse it? Now?

11:18 I don't want you to think I know somebody. You are going to be like, well, shouldn't they know that? Well? The reality is is sometimes it's important to bring these things to their attention because maybe they may have overlooked that. And then if they haven't overlooked it and they're still doing it wrong. Did you appeal that decision? Did you appeal that decision to a judge? Did you appeal that decision to an appeals council? Did you take this back in the federal court? I always tell people when people come to be fired up because somebody did something at the lower level, I'm like, did you take every measure of appeal in order to change that situation? Because sitting here and raising hell about it is not going to

11:53 do you any good if you haven't availed yourself of every measure of appeal. I know because I've had situations where couple of people, it happens they're going to be individuals within the Social Security administration that's going to do things that are inherently incorrect. Well, sometimes it takes you going through the appeals process and arguing it to show them that they are wrong. I had a situation like that similarly, where an error was made at the local level.

12:18 When it got to the judges level, the judge corrected the error, send it back to the local level. Everything worked out. But if you're just gonna do it at the local level and then do nothing after what raise hell, you're not going to get the result that you're looking for. Utilize the administrative appeals process necessary, and then if necessary, go into civil court if you believe you have a strong premise under the law. This is where it's important that you talk to your Social security representatives so they can help you out. Okay, the sixth and final question, can a child receive Social Security and child support? Here's the magical answer that almost every representative are more importantly

12:57 of your attorney. Of course, as the attorney, I'm going to say that says it depends. Here's why I say it depends. First of all, most people let me paust for a second. First, it depends on the type of social security benefit. If the child is getting Social Security Survivors benefits based on the earnings of their deceased parent, well that's a lot different than supplemental security income. That means their money's already paid in, they're going to get that money, So child support has no impact on it whatsoever.

13:27 If you're talking about supplemental security income. That's a needs based program, resource base. So what you need to ask yourself now is well, a couple of things. One, when you're saying child support, they're going to look at how much money are they getting in child support. The other thing they're i look at is how many people are in the house. Remember it's a resource based situation. So if there's one child and one adult maybe and one child on an adult and the only source of income is the SSI, if they're getting child support, there's the possibility that that child support may be reduced if there's a lot of people in the house that there is very low income, the child support might not affect it

14:04 at all. So the grander scheme of things is that you have to ask all those questions, how many people are in the house, how many resources are coming in the house, how much social security are they getting, and in what type of social security they getting. The short answer is yes, you can get both. But the long answer is it depends on what type of social security benefit and the circumstances by which they're getting disability benefits or social security benefits in the home. Everyone, I want to thank you again for joining me for another edition of Q and A social Security Disability Today. I welcome your comments and your questions keep coming and as always and I can provide an answer your provide question. Have

14:42 a wonderful day, stay here.