Written for Willhoite Law, PLLC.
Some people may go to social security and have already been adjudicated to have a certain amount of disability or restrictions under the veterans administration system. That determination by different form or a different commission or different administrative law system does not have any binding effect on social security. So for instance, the veteran’s administration, they say that you’re 100% that say, well, but that does not necessarily mean you will be found disabled under social security risks. Now, having said that, the fact that a veteran’s administration found your condition was so bad that they thought you were 100% disabled means that you do have some medical condition and that medical condition might or might not meet social security’s disability requirements. What will a Social Security attorney tell you? The veterans administrations ruling is not binding on social security. But again, the fact that the person was successful in front of the Veterans Administration, indicates they probably have some medical records documenting some severe disability, and restrictions.
Also, people may appear before Social security, after having received some type of a role award under worker’s compensation system and the workers’ compensation system. At workers’ comp the judge rulled that they’re hundred percent this disabled or there was some percentage of disability. Your Social Security attorney should tell you Social Security does not look at what percent you are disabled. They look at do you meet their rules, the disability test is met or it is not. So you may be 90% disabled under workers’ comp, but unless you’re 100% disabled under social security, you’re not going to get benefits. And again, social security does not look at the percentages. So you could not be found 90% disabled under social security. You’re either found that you meet the requirements of social security disability or you do not meet the requirements of social security disability.
Some people when they think what they need to prove benefits. They will look at and Workers’ compensation award and they may discount how much you received based upon how much you get out of the Workers’ compensation award. Those are involved calculations that are beyond the scope of this article, but ask your Social Security attorney for more details.
Social security disability has thousands of people waiting on decisions. The reason it takes so long is because they do have such a large number of people applying for disability for the fence and they have limited resources in which to review the records and administrative law judges to make the decisions. Social security has multiple offices across the nation. Most Social Security attorney will represent clients across the state. For an example, there’s the two different three offices. Actually there’s four. There’s the ability to have, there’s two main hearing offices in Oklahoma City, one and tall. So now they also have multiple social security offices around the state where they can do video conferences. As an example, my ama, Oklahoma, you can have a hearing there. Usually the video conference is going to be back to judge, said even Tulsa. There’s that and there’s other locations around the state. Similar to that, social security is looking at the person as a whole. So even though one condition you have and they know render you unable to work, the more conditions you have can have an additive effect.
So you may have a problem with your back, but it’s not completely severe enough to keep you from working on its own. And then perhaps you have problems with your hands. And when the judge looks at that considers all the evidence, they could find that the combination of the restrictions with your hands and the restrictions based upon your back prevent you from being able to work. Bid toll restrictions are common in social security when they’re determining what the person’s ability is to work. For instance, a person may physics, they’d be able to work a job, but there may be some mental issues that prevent them from being able to hold down a job on an ongoing basis. Perhaps a person has a mental condition where three out of four or five days a week they are able to work and do everything and employer would require for almost any job, but those other days out of the week they may not with their mental condition, may prevent them from being able to leave the house. How the person presents their case through their Social Security attorney can make a big difference.
When social security is looking at a person’s absenteeism based upon their mental health or some other factor, they will consider that in chem, this person hold down competitive employment. It’s going to depend upon what the evidence says, but a lot of vocational experts will indicate that if you consistently miss one day a month, you’re not going to be able to hold down a job over the long term. Now missing work might not just be limited to mental health issues. So when they have an ongoing medical problem that requires that they go to the doctor once or twice a month and would require that they miss work on those two days, perhaps they go in and they get some type of treatment and that treatment prevents them from being able to work the rest of that day and miss two days a month. A lot of circumstances, the court, they find that that would prevent them holding down substantial gainful activities.
Social Security also looks to see how much a person is earning and maybe the person’s able to earn an amount of money that exceeds substantial gainful activity level for a month, but then the next month they’re not able to do that. They’re looking at the long term. In fact, the person we’re able to go and hold down a job for maybe up to 90 days, but after that, no longer able to hold
down that job. So security could look at that as an assessable work at Tim where they tried to go to work and initially they were able to do everything. But over time the stress of that employment grew more and more and the longer they did it think that the harder it became for them until finally they were no longer able to perform in a manner that allowed them to keep their employment. There’s many different rules that so security has and it’s always important to talk to an attorney who is experienced in social security law. Now, there’s always exceptions so you should contact an experienced social security attorney like Todd Willhoite.