Sometimes claimants forget that in the questions that Social Security asks, they are always really asking: “how does your medical impairment keep you from working?”
Social Security asks a lot of questions about what you do during the day. These types of questions are about your activities of daily living. The idea is that if Social Security asks you what you do day in and day out and learns what you do, they can then figure out if your medical impairment would prevent you from working.
So, what does Social Security conclude if you state that you go out to eat several times a month? This depends upon what your medical impairments are. Assume you cannot work due to back pain. You cannot stand for more than 15 minutes at a time before you have to sit down for 15 minutes. You cannot sit for more than 30 minutes before you have to stand or lie down. Can you guess what conclusions Social Security is likely to jump to about your ability to work because you go out to eat?
When I go over these types of issues with my clients, they have no idea what the real question is that they are answering. Due to not knowing the real question, they do not tell all that they know that is relevant to the real question. Since they do not tell everything they know that is relevant to the real question, they actually end up in effect lying. They are not telling the whole truth, only part of the truth. Do not misunderstand me, they are trying to tell the truth, but they do not understand the real question. They are not telling all that they know which is critical to answering the real question. This partial truth-only part of the facts-is used by Social Security to reach conclusions about whether or not they are disabled. When they do not have all of the facts, how can Social Security make the right decision?
Some Administrative Law Judges will compare what the claimants says at the hearing with what they told SSA at the beginning of the process before the claimant understood what was really being asked. If there is any variation, they conclude that the claimant is not being truthful. Our clients want to tell the truth. We help them to tell the whole truth at the beginning of the process. We help them understand the question – the real issues in the questions that Social Security is going to ask them. Do you have someone with the experience needed to help you tell the whole truth?
“The Rest of The Story” Man Dies // Mar 19, 2009 at 10:51 am
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