ssdi denial letter came today

[ewhitese]

Just as I thought it would, my application for disability was denied yesterday.  I began the application process mid June, the process has taken 5 months from initial application.  I completed my own application, and did not seek an attorney's advice.  I was called in for a mental evaluation test, in mid October.  I am pretty convinced that process is a formality and did not enter into the decision process.  Now I am trying to decide if I should keep going find an attorney and appeal.  I have 60 days to decide if this is the way I choose to go.   I view it as good news bad news.  I am in a different place than I was in June and think I am working back to a place I can go to work.  I am not there yet but I believe I will get there.  Since I am not going to die in the next six months and might be able to find part time work doing something simple I am not disabled.  I don't know if I have a chance to overcome that definition.  What I need to do is cultivate a drug addiction because that would instantly put me on the disability list. go figure.  Just the frustration talking, wondering if the effort is worth it.  I am fortunate my wife is the second income in the family and I am not destitute, what if there was no other income, how does the ss admin think those people are existing during this bureaucratic crawl.

So any way it's all good.  I am functioning better than I was and feel good about my progress.   I am a self made man and don't like the idea of being dependent on someone else anyway.

[bethtretrault]

Always appeal the decision within the required timeframe. They do an almost automatic denial. When you have the appeal hearing make sure you have medical reports outlining the permanent problems you have and how they interfere with your ability to engage in "substantial gainful activity".

[Mimispree]

Just received my denial letter yesterday.  Have you appealed the decision?  Did you get a lawyer? 

I don't know if I'm up for all that is involved, but the denial letter doesn't even acknowledge I had surgery.  It's as if someone just scanned my application and the doctors reports and didn't bother to read them.  They had me see three doctors, and all of them volunteered that they were going to recommend benefits for me.  Two of them told me they often deny first applications. 

What a crazy system.  Hopefully in time, it will get better.  Thankfully, the affordable healthcare act helped me get the surgery, so I'd like to think things can get better, including my health.

[ewhitese]

The explanation that I was given is that denial is based on an evaluators decision that the patient can do work of any kind.  That litmus test means that a person in a 6 figure salary would not be eligible if determined to be able to hold down a minimum wage position.  So no one as far as I can see is eligible for SSDI.

That being said I did not reapply, not because I gave up but because I am physically returning to my old self.  I have overcome some major hurtles and am looking at returning to the job market.  I am 55 years old and not sure what the job market holds for me.  I made up my mind to wait until I could be confident that I was ready to go back to work.  I am not able to go back to my old position and would have trouble being productive in it anyway.   I had the luxury of taking an early retirement from my previous employment and am currently collecting a pension all be it smaller than I had planned for, but with frugal penny pitching I have been able to manage and feel some what stable.  So I haven't made up my mind what I will do but when it presents itself I will know it is time.

I to have worked all my life back to my childhood.  I don't presently work for an employer but I am working on the honey do list and catching up on projects that have needed my attention for quite some time.  One of these days it isn't going to be enough to convince me I am being productive with that which the good lord seemed fit to hand me.  So I expect to go back to work I just don't know what kind of work yet.  My possibilities are as broad as I want them to be.

If my circumstances were more disabling than they have been I would reapply.