What Essential Information You Need To Know About Disability Claims?

Occasionally in life we dealt a significant setback that requires a bit of maneuvering on our part to adequately deal with. Falling ill or getting a significant injury can be one of these setbacks.

After suffering an injury, it may be difficult or impossible to go to work as you used to, but the thing is, your bills are still going to keep arriving month after month, so what are you going to do? At this point, going on disability for the duration of your incapacitation might be your only option to keep your head above water while you figure out your next moves. To properly go on disability, you’ll have to navigate through some bureaucracy and be able to show that you are truly in need of the extra helping hand. Governments and insurance companies can be rather reluctant to process claims in your favor, unfortunately.

On that note, here’s a few things worth knowing about the disability claim process:

Expect Your First Claim To Get Rejected

No matter how thorough and compelling your claim might seem to you, there’s a good chance the first communication you have with whoever will be paying out your disability will end up denying your claim. This doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to disability whatsoever, it’s just part of the system. Disability claims are rejected at rates of up to 50% or more on average, so don’t be surprised if you end up holding a denial letter in your hand upon your first claim. This does however bring us to the next point on this list.

Expect To Fight Your Denied Claim

It would seem that denying a large majority of claims is not an actual denial of your disability, but instead the disability agency seeing how serious you are about getting compensation. It’s safe to imagine that a lot of people fraudulently send in disability claims, it can also be assumed that most of these people give up fairly quickly upon being denied since they know they don’t have a leg to stand on (or in this case, they still have both their legs to stand on). This means that the people who constantly and consistently seek arbitration for their claims are more likely genuinely disabled and in need of help. Fighting for your claim on your own might prove difficult, but there are so many choices in experienced lawyers who can help you secure the compensation you rightly deserve. It isn’t uncommon to have to seek out a lawyer for this purpose, in fact, some law practices deal explicitly with litigation against disability programs since it can be fairly time consuming.

Keep Your Denial Letter On Hand

One of the most important parts of fighting your denied claim is the letter itself. The letter will specify why exactly no compensation will be issued based on the company’s policies. Letters will include that company’s definition of a “disability” as well as what you’re entitled to under the terms of your claim. They’ll also cite whatever medical documents you provided and why they weren’t the most compelling. The denial letter will be your first step in figuring out how to have your claim approved since you’ll be trying to prove that their reasons for denial aren’t satisfactory. To properly fight their allegations, you’ll have to have them on hand in the form of the denial letter.

Internal Vs External Appeals

When appealing your denial, there are two types of appeals: internal and external. An internal appeal can be done exclusively by yourself and it’s about you talking to the company directly and they seeing what they can do for you. Not everyone has a lot of faith in internal appeals since it’s still all within the company that has denied you in the first place so it might not necessarily go anywhere. An external appeal, however involves the court system and possible litigation by lawyers who represent your case. External appeals are typically much quicker and more likely to result in success, although you will have to pay a lawyer’s fees.

Claiming disability can be a big headache for many people, as we all know that organizations are very reluctant to hand out money for any reason. But, whether it be a governmental program or private insurance, you have paid your dues and are entitled to the benefits you were promised, assuming your claim is genuine. I’d like to remind anyone reading this that it might be a long climb before your claim is finally accepted, yet you shouldn’t be discouraged if your claim is denied initially. Most successful claims begin with a denial letter and then go from there.

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