Spencer Bishins - Social Security Disability Revealed: Why its hard to access benefits and what you can do about it

Social Security Disability Revealed: Why its so hard to access benefits and what you can do about it

Written by: Spencer Bishins

Edited by: Allison Bishins

The information presented in this book is not legal advice. It is for educational purposes only. No attorney/client relationship exists between the author and the reader. Anyone who requires legal advice should contact an attorney.

The examples in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real life situations is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without express written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in book reviews or articles.

Copyright 2022 Spencer Bishins

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 979-8-9863716-3-4

Bishins Publishing

1. Why I Decided to Write This Book

I graduated from law school in the mid-2000s. During law school, I wanted to go into criminal law, representing people who are accused of committing crimes. There were motions, trials, and appeals, and it all seemed so fast paced and exciting! Then came the 2008 economic downturn. I was admitted to the Bar in April, but by September, it became clear that finding a job was going to be very difficult. With my new wife and I both having significant student loans, my dream job morphed into, well, the kind of job that involved a weekly paycheck.

For two years, I floated around in the unstable and unsettling world of legal document review. Basically, a law firm would hire me at an hourly rate, with no benefits, and could let me go at any time, for any or no reason. And I do mean at any time. During one project, at 10:00 am we were told there would be 40 hours per week plus overtime, and by 2:00 pm, all the attorneys were told the project had ended and our services were no longer necessary. But when the projects came, they often came with 60 hour weeks (meaning 20 hours of overtime) and nice fat paychecks. Plus, I had no other options. Law firms all around the country were scaling back. So, I, along with a lot of seasoned attorneys, did this work for as long as I had to.

My big break came when I was hired by the Social Security Administration (SSA), a federal agency, as an Attorney Advisor in 2010, thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The job posting stated that I would be reviewing disability cases. I presumed this meant that Social Security had some sort of disability program, but I had never heard of it. I did a bit of research to understand the process. I wanted to learn how a person applies for disability, how to qualify, and how SSA determines whether a person is disabled.

From that time until the time when I left SSA over a decade later, I was involved in over 5,000 disability cases, writing or reviewing the ultimate decision for each case. I will save you from having to do the math. If there are 250 workdays in a year (and for me there were fewer, since federal employees get 11 holidays each year, and also a generous amount of sick and annual leave), in 10 years I would have served for around 2,500 workdays. This means I completed an average of two cases each day. Many of these cases had thousands of pages of medical evidence to review, and the average case included 600 to 800 pages of evidence. This evidence included bloodwork, imaging studies, doctors reports, mental health treatment notes, as well as highly repetitive and disorganized treatment notes from clinics associated with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA).

At this point, I hope you are thinking, How could anyone possibly review that much detailed medical evidence and write or review a final agency decision in just four hours? The answer is, poorly. I was excited to be a government lawyer engaged in the noble profession of public service. But the job I thought I was hired for was not the job I ended up doing.

SSA receives around two million applications each year for disability benefits. At one point during my career, more than a million people were waiting for a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). As a result, staff were told to go faster, write less, and spend less time on each case. But staff were also told to conduct a thorough review of all medical evidence, and then write a complete and legally sufficient decision that can withstand a legal challenge in Federal Court. Do you see the problem here?

SSA tells Congress they are conducting a fair, honest, and impartial review of applications for disability benefits. These are benefits that every worker who qualifies is entitled to after paying a Social Security tax for many years. When I started working as a lawyer, I was paying that tax too, but I never looked at my paystub closely enough to see what that tax was for. If you are an employee of a company, any company in the United States, look at your more recent paystub. Find the line that says OASDI . This is your Social Security tax. OASDI stands for Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability insurance. In other words, retirement, life insurance, and disability insurance. This means you too have paid into this system, even if you did not know you did.

Almost all of us are required to pay into the system. We get a job, we get a paycheck, and our employers payroll provider automatically withholds the tax money and sends it to SSA. Each year, millions of people find they are unable to work because of a physical injury, a chronic condition, a sudden accident, a mental health condition, or often a combination of these factors. Many people do not know they have been paying into a national insurance program that is supposed to be there for them, if at some point during their lives they need it. But it is there, and a lot of people need it!

Unfortunately, however, the system is not set up for the people who need it. The system is set up to appease members of Congress, advance the careers of SSA employees, provide people with lots of holidays and leave, and provide a federal pension at retirement. In other words, SSA, which is supposed to prioritize the taxpayers, doesnt.

You deserve to know the truth. After you file your application for disability benefits, what really happens behind the scenes? How long does each person spend looking at your case? How much time is spent writing and reviewing the decision? What are the true motivations of SSA employees involved in this process? Does it help to have a lawyer representing you? Is the outcome of your case predetermined? What can you do to make things go more smoothly? Is there any hope of improving the process?

2. How I Hope You Will Use This Book