What is that one obstacle that you simply cannot overcome in a long-term disability claim? The answer is lack of medical support.
If you do not have medical support for your disability, you will not be able to win your long-term disability claim. Let’s imagine a scenario where you get a physical or mental condition that you claim limits your ability to work. So you go to your doctor and they prescribe some treatment and you go to a specialist, you get more treatment, you go to this doctor, you go to this physical therapist, yada, yada, yada, but you go back to your doctor and he or she says that you can still work. That is what I mean.
You need a medical doctor who is able to say that you are physically or mentally unable to work in order to qualify for long-term disability. I have never seen a situation where no medical doctors have certified that you’re physically unable to perform the main duties of your occupation and then that long-term disability claim wins. So there are several situations where maybe the doctor doesn’t quite exactly understand what you’re asking him or her to do.
Long-Term Disability Claim Quick Example
For example, I’ll tell you a story about a case I had recently where the doctor called me after getting my letter asking him for an opinion and he said, “What exactly are you asking me to do? Because I don’t think that your client is 100% disabled. I think that she can do certain other things.”
My Response to the Insurance Company
My response was, “Oh, I completely agree with you. I think that you’re right. But the standard that we’re dealing with is not a social security disability standard. What we are dealing with is an own occupation standard. So the question is not, can she do any work, the question is, can she perform the main duties of her own occupation? And if the answer to that is no, then she’s entitled to long-term disability for at least two years.”
And that was a fact and this particular doctor said, “Oh, absolutely. I agree with that 100%.” Then, he turned around and wrote us a really nice, really thorough and comprehensive and compelling letter opinion detailing why my client could not perform the main duties of her prior occupation. She won her long-term disability claim.
So that is another thing to look out for as you’re making sure that you’re compiling all the information that you need in order to win your long-term disability claim.
I hope this video has been helpful to you. If you have any questions about getting your doctors on board or getting medical support for your long-term disability claim, send me an email. I’d be happy to chat with you about it.
