When a person becomes too sick to work in the United States, there are very few long-term governmental programs to help them. Their only hope is often to be approved for Social Security Disability in Jackson, MS. Even this program requires that they be disabled for at least a year. The government expects people to have enough savings to live without working for a year or to have family members who will support them for that time period. The only exception is if the person isn’t expected to live for a year.
It is very difficult to get the Social Security employees approve an application. There is a long and confusing application form that has to be filled out perfectly in order to get the disability benefits approved. For a person who is too sick to work, this can be an almost impossible task. Their best strategy is to hire a lawyer who understands the process. He will know how to work with the person’s doctor to get the application approved. The Social Security staff will carefully examine the physical and intellectual demands of the job that the worker had. They will then look at how their capacity to do that job has changed. That will determine if they are fully or partially disabled.
The worker, his attorney and lawyer will have to explain their work history in detail. They will have to describe how long they had to stand, sit or walk to do their job. It’s also necessary to document all of the tasks they were required to perform and the equipment and machines that they used to do them. The Social Security administrator isn’t necessarily interested in what’s wrong with the person, they just want to understand if they can continue to do these tasks.
If the initial application is denied, the applicant only has a short period of time to file an appeal for a hearing. At this point an administrative judge will review the findings of the Social Security staff person. In addition to the applicant and their lawyer, a lawyer representing the Social Security department will also attend. Witnesses can also be called. Reports by the Social Security administration show that applicants with lawyers are much more successful than those who try to do it alone.
