(REMASTERED) Q&A: Social Security Disability Today, August 14, 2011

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0:40 Good day everyone. My name is Anthony reevestorney at law, and welcome to another edition of Q and A Social Security Disability Today. Yes, I know you're probably used to me with the with the T shirt on. I'm a shadow, but I'm trying to get a little cleaned up rather than things, so at least I may be a little bit better to look at. Go figure a right, Let's go ahead and get rock and rolling. First question today was is my DLI or what they call date last insured, something I can get from my annual Social Security statement?

1:10 Now some of you may notice that pretty much about once a year you'll get a statement from Social Security that says if you retire by sixty two, that's how much you would get. If you retire by sixty five, this is what you would get. More importantly, for your purposes of disability. If you're found disabled, this is what you would get. Here's what I tell people all the time.

1:29 If you are wondering whether when, excuse me, when your insurance coverage ends, which is what the date last assured is, don't rely on the form because I've never really seen it on the form. I saying it's not there, but I typically don't look for it there. Your smart move is to call your local Social Security office and ask them what is your date last insured? And they should be able to access one of their screens and tell you that information. This way, you know, definitively as opposed to relying on your form, which may or may not be current at the time you actually get it, because remember they only usually provide this thing once a year.

2:04 All right, Now, have someone asked the question settler workers comp case back in OH seven basically stopped working in O seven. They were injured, but they didn't work for about four years because of the fact that they were taking care of their elderly parents. They now want to know is it too late to file up a disability or did they wait too long? Now this kind of plays into the part of the date last and sure This is how it works. First and foremost, to find out whether or not you've waited too long, just contact with Social Security Office and ask them what your date last and sure it is. So if you're thinking about applying today in twenty eleven, but jen work since two thousand and seven, they'll be able to tell you if

2:45 you have insurance coverage through up to now, so you can actually apply in your earning That's one of the nice things about the date last insure because I've had this happen quite a bit. Not like the question that I got here with regards to workers comp but imagine this same scenario where let's assume that individual didn't get hurt, that they actually stopped working because they were taking care of their family members, took a break about three to four years, And I've had people who are represented like that and then all of a sudden they decided to go back into the workforce and then get injured right when they're thinking about going into it now. They have the same problem that you have in this instance where

3:23 you've taken a substantial time off and you're not sure if you're serial covered for purposes of applying under your earnings, check your date last and sure, the Social Security Office should let you know whether or not you still have covered based on your earnings. Now, remember under supplemental Security income program, it doesn't matter because that program is based on your financial status and you can apply for that any time. But if you're trying to basically get this ability coverage based on what you've paid the system, calls of Security first find out whether or not you're still covered, and once you then you'll know whether you can go ahead and apply. And this is the best thing about

4:03 it because typically if you paid in the five of those last ten years is what I always tell people, you should have coverage that goes out at least up to about five years from when you stop working, depending on how your coverage ran, Meaning if you had five good years working paying in, you should have a window going forward. But went in out calls Social Security and specifically say I need to know what my date last insured is so I can know if I can apply based on my earnings. Now, somebody asked a wonderful question about online classes. They said, my question involves part time work and online classes while currently receiving the VIB If a person gets disability benefits and has a disabled condition

4:46 that limits them to possibly being able to work to a sedentary job only a few hours a day, causing their benefits to cease. Could these hours work against them for trial work period? That's what most people fail to realize. The trial work period is really designed so that you are not going to be penalized for if you are earning up to what we call substantial gainful activity SGN, so that that for the months that you work, that those months aren't going to hit against you. I actually did a video talking about this, and it was important for you to pay attention to this because of the fact Social Security recognize that you're not going to be out of work forever. You're going to try to get back into the workforce. So for if your money that

5:32 you're making is less than SGA, it may not be a problem for purposes of a trial work period, it might be a problem for purposes of determining whether you're disabled. Here's what I mean. Every three to five years, Social Security does we call a continuing disability review. And when they do that review, they're going to look at things like are you working a part time job? Are you going to school? Now, keep in mind these things for a purpose. Make sure you understand in exactly what goes on when you do those things. If you're doing a part time job once a week, because that's all you can physically do, you need to make sure you can articulate that. If you're doing online classes because it is too hard to go into a classroom and you have

6:17 the ability to go back and watch the videos of presentations being archived. I used to teach online classes, so I know the nice thing is you could do. I can teach a class today and you can go back and look at that class later. So if you can only sit for like twenty minutes at a time, and you had an hour lecture, you might watch twenty minutes, put it on pause, go lay down for a while, come back and finish it. You've got to be prepared to explain how you normally do those things so that the person who is actually reviewing your case can get an appreciation of your circumstances. A boy, how you do your part time job as well as going to school.

6:52 So I hope that helps now. If a dB recipient was physically unable to attend college, but try to take one or two online courses per semester with that negatively effective VIV And that goes back to my original discussion. Make sure you document how you're doing those classes because most people don't realize. Unlike a traditional college setting where you may have three or four classes, and you may have back to back and you know you can got to go from one class, you walk to the hallways go to another classes, an online setting is designed to work at your pace. But you've got to make sure that when Social Security is asking you questions about that, that you are completely clear about how that pace is worked.

7:38 Meaning if just as I said before, if you're work, if you're taking classes where you got two classes per semester, they're online classes, and you know you work an hour here, you do something here. You know you may be able to watch half an hour or a video there, but then you need to take you know, a couple hours before you can go back and finish. Social Security does not know the conditions by which you actually do your classes, so you need to make sure you explain that to them in detail, all right now. Also, someone said, do you think online classes would allow disabled individuals to freedom to work at their own pace and would allow the individual to learn new skills. Absolutely. That's one of the

8:18 perks of online classes is that imagine when you think most of us, when we think of classroom environment, we think of going to class, going from walking down the hall, sitting in a class for an hour, getting up, rotating to another. An online environment is ultimately designed to work with individuals who may not necessarily be able to matriculate in a normal classroom setting. So keep that thought in the vacuum mind. Now, someone ask can a long term disability carrier charge me for more than the total social security disability benefits I received? Is there a way to contest this? And who do I contact? People? Let me make this abundantly clear, and I think I've talked about this and other presentation as well. If you have a

9:01 long term disability policy and some of the languages of those policies there typically will have something in there that talks about reimbursement for purposes. If you apply for Social Security, the idea is this, you're getting long term disability benefits, which is giving you a monthly allotment because you're unable to work. So a lot of times they require you to apply for Social Security and they expect to be reimbursed once you receive it. Well, if you are concerned that, let's say a situation where the Social Security determines you're disabled, but not the entire time period, and as a result, the money that you would have gotten that would have covered all a period of long term disability, it's substantially

9:44 less than what the long term disability policy has. You need to do two things. First, you need to read that policy because that's what you signed. And I always tell people whenever they sign this, they get these and they come to me running, you know, doing the high pro globe because they're getting this long term disability. I said, look at the policy first. Then if you have a problem with the policy, contact your long term disability carrier.

10:07 And if that is a problem, still contact your ARISA provider. It's what I call it's a risk. Excuse me ARISA attorney because those are usually attorneys that can help you out a whole lot. All right, got a question also about congestive heart failure. I had a person with a twenty percent injection fraction as well as the fact they have a college degree. They're asked they felt like, you know what, there's medical evidence in my file. You know how you know, why are they asking me to go to an independent evaluation when they have on the medical records.

10:40 What kind of hard case will get proved? Okay, here's the thing you need to be aware of a couple of things. First of all, when Social Security asks for me your medical records, they typically will only pay up to fourteen dollars for medical records, so there's unless you actually have seen the file, there's no guarantee that they have everything. That's the first thing. Typically they do examinations because of the fact that there's additional evidence that they need that they may not have, so keep that thought in the back of your mind as well. Third, heart cases, it just depends if you have an ejection fraction under thirty percent, that's going to be fairly substantial. The tough thing in this person's case is we're talking about a

11:22 thirty two year old person with a college education. So at a bare minimum of security, it's probably going to presume that you can do at least a sedentary job. That's what's going to hurt you right there. If they think you can do a sit down job with your education and your work, with your education and your age, it's going to be tough. If you want me to do more definitive discussion about heart conditions, shoot me a message and I'll be more than happy to do so.

11:49 Same thing with persons who are obese. Every now and then i'll get somebody who has an obede, who has an obese ob city problem. And in this gentleman's case, he can't really work out well because they're telling them to lose weight. But in the catch twenty two, because of this condition, you can't lose weight. It's kind of one of those things where I tell people to do this, give it your best effort, and make sure you tell the doctor that you've given it your best effort. If the doctor is telling you to lose weight, make sure you tell that doctor you're taking every effort to try to lose weight, so that they document it to your file so that it does not look like you're not trying to do so. And this way it'll help you

12:27 out a lot. And then finally, somebody asked about making money in terms of a hobby, and I tell you this, If you are working part time and you're making a couple of dollars here, a couple of dollars there, and you're reporting it back to Social Security. They may be looking at that to see how you do it. Remember, it's never just the small dollar amount by itself. It's the manner in which you do it which is more important.

12:52 Because if it's something that you could do more thocial Security may use that as an opportunity to demonstrate that you could probably do that with a greater degree, to possibly even go back towards today. It was a kind of a wild day. I had about nine questions. I tried to hit him as quickly as I could. If by some reason you want me to go into more detail, please put a post, send me a comment, and actually send or send me a message saying more detail, and then ask and then lay out exactly what it is.

13:22 And then I will do a video especially addressing that in greater detail, just for you. My name is Anthony Reeves. And as always, if you have a Q and A make sure you visit me here at Social Security Disability Today. I am Anthony Reeves. I have a wonderful day.