- Hello, and welcome to Hill and Ponton Social Security
Disability Blog.
I'm Natalia Jofre, the Social Security section director.
- I'm Shelly Mark.
I'm the Senior Social Security Attorney.
- So in our last blog we talked
about fully favorable decisions.
We all celebrated, right? - Yes, yay!
- You've waited this long, you won your case, that's great.
Now, what happens when your decision says,
"Partially favorable?"
- Right.
People get really excited because it says "favorable,"
and they kinda skip over the "partially" part.
- Yeah, whoops.
- What that means is that the judge has agreed
that you're disabled,
but he or she has disagreed as to when.
So, you may have alleged that you became disabled
in January of 2014 when you stopped working,
but the judge may find that you became disabled
in June of 2016.
And there's a variety of different reasons
why that may be the case.
You know, the biggest issue
or the biggest thing to know there
is that you can appeal it.
- Right.
- You do have sixty days
from the date of the decision to appeal it;
however, you need to be really careful in doing so
because your entire file is at risk.
Meaning that any future adjudication
also includes whether or not you're disabled.
So they can come back and say,
"You know what, we disagree.
"We don't think you're disabled at all."
- So that's huge.
- It's a big risk.
- People, many times, are willing to take that huge risk.
So you have to look at, you know, is it worth it?
- Right.
- And if you appeal...
And we're gonna be talking about the appeals counsel
in one of our next blogs,
but if you appeal it,
it's not like, "Oh well, I'm gonna go back
"to the same judge sixty days from now
"and just have him see, just have a hearing
"and we can talk about this
"and say 'You know, I thought I was disabled in 2014
"and you said I'm not disabled until 2016.'"
What's gonna actually happen is you're gonna have
to then wait probably an average of twenty-four months
to get another hearing,
you're gonna go before the same judge,
really your evidence hasn't changed.
- Right.
- They really can't consider other evidence either.
At that point, the record is closed
so you're not going to have any different information
and you put yourself at risk of them taking it all away.
We've seen it happen.
- Yeah, we've seen it happen
and it's bad because then you end up
with an overpayment, as well as losing your benefits.
- So that means you have to give all the money back.
- Yeah. - You don't want to do that.
- And that's hard to do when you're not working.
- Right.
- So, one of the biggest things to do when you receive
a partially favorable decision is to determine why.
These judges are, they're smart.
They're giving you this on-set date for a reason.
It could be because maybe you stopped working in 2014,
but you didn't have the MRIs done until June of 2016.
So legally, the judge can't grant your claim until the
medical evidence is there
for them to base their decision on.
Another example would be maybe you stopped working in 2014,
but you turned 55 in June of 2016.
- Right.
- So at that point, you've changed into
a different age group
and you're in advanced age
and the statutes change.
So usually there is a reason why it's
a different on-set date.
We definitely go through with our clients
and explain to them exactly why
and counsel them on whether to appeal or not.
- Yeah, and we've talked about
the different age groups in a past blog
and so, like Shelly said,
when you talk about your 55th birthday,
we'll amend sometimes on-set dates of disability
to the 55th birthday
because the same rules for a person
that's 50 to 54 don't apply to a person that's 55 to 59.
The older you get, the easier it is.
So, the judge might say,
"Well, you didn't really meet these rules at age 54,
"but hey, now you meet them at age 55,"
so that's why they're approving that
different on-set date of disability.
- Right, and that's a great...
That's a really good outcome
because the judge could just say,
"They didn't change their on-set date
"to their 55th birthday.
"We're gonna deny it and they can re-file."
- The other thing that we see a lot is with
if you were getting unemployment benefits.
- That's true.
- They don't want to pay you twice.
So in other words, you were getting unemployment
from 2014 through, let's say, June of 2016
and so the judge says,
"Okay, I'm going to give you benefits as of July of 2016."
Why?
Because they feel like unemployment already paid you.
I'm not gonna pay you again for those same months.
- Right, yes.
And when you're on unemployment,
you have to remember that you're saying
that you're able and available to work
and when you're filing for disability,
you're saying that you're disabled and unable to work.
- Judges do not like that contradiction.
- They do not.
Our clients we would always counsel
to change the on-set date to after
any unemployment benefits.
- So those are all reasons why you can get
a partially favorable decision,
but it's always best, you know,
you have to review it
and see what's best for yourself.
- Yeah, definitely.
- So, in our next blog,
we'll be talking about what happens if you get an
- [Together] Unfavorable
- Decision.
But for now, if you have any questions,
feel free to either call us
or visit our website
and thank you for joining us.
- Thank you.
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