Disability and SSDI Process

I’m personally of the opinion that if I could work to support my family I would and I should. But, I’ve found out that the rules aren’t sometimes fair after going on social security disability.

After seeing my job performance decline over the years (I say that because I was in sales management and owned my own business where I was able to see what my numbers were every month). The challenge is that not everyone gets to see their numbers monthly to see their performance.

A disease like MS can be especially challenging to judge if you’re dealing with fatigue and cognitive related issues. I made the decision to apply for SSDI years ago after hearing SSDI attorney Greg Hobbie speak at one of our MS support group meetings. Greg spoke of countless people applying for SSDI and getting declined because of paperwork mistakes and overall not being able to present their disease situation effectively. Greg had seen people eating out of dumpsters, not being able to support themselves or their families and unfortunately had clients commit suicide.

The problem is that one out of every three people applying for SSDI have to be turned down (those are the statistics in New Jersey anyway). The reason being is that there are too many people applying for SSDI. That was the case years ago, I honestly don’t know what the numbers are today. What I do know is that I continue to speak with Greg about SSDI. Apparently, there are reviews done by SSDI to see if a person is still unable to work. Even years after my approval (thank god), I still have Greg as a sounding board.

Everyone’s situation is different but I highly recommend using a disability attorney to help you through the process. It takes a long time to get your case heard and if they reject you the process starts all over most of the time. As we learn with MS, time is not on our side.