Should I include a personal letter with claim?

[mlch]

I am sending all my info to SS in a day or two. I am considering including a letter to further explain my situation. Such as explain when I started having problems and back up my statements with printed materials. I spoke to a very nice employee at SS who stated my situation is complicated because my benefits run out 3 months before I was dx. She said really need to prove I had IC in 2005. When I asked her about the child drop out clause she said that only pertained to the determined monthy payment amount. I'm confused if she really didn't know about it or if this is the case.

Is it a good idea to include a letter or will it be laughed at and discarded? Or would it make me look desperate and they will question my intergrety?

I do have the letter from the ICA that Jill signed that seems to be a great help in and IC case.

[tigger_gal]

It will not hurt to send the letter, but it don't know if it will help, all thet are looking for is doctor documentation. I did send in tons of printed up IC and other issues in with my application. The only way you can prove you had IC in 2005 is by a doctor that will confirm it.
I think that the child drop out clause is referring to the monthly amount you get for your child, I received 38 a month. When she turned 18 it stopped. They may not give you that "extra" amount if your child is not in school.

Good luck

[mlch]

It will not hurt to send the letter, but it don't know if it will help, all thet are looking for is doctor documentation. I did send in tons of printed up IC and other issues in with my application. The only way you can prove you had IC in 2005 is by a doctor that will confirm it.
I think that the child drop out clause is referring to the monthly amount you get for your child, I received 38 a month. When she turned 18 it stopped. They may not give you that "extra" amount if your child is not in school.

Good luck

hmm...maybe I'll skip the letter afterall. I have tons of printed docs already. I thought they'd help. But maybe not.

i thought the child drop out had to do with credits needed. That you could be short the credits if the reason was care for a child under 3. I was told I'd get about for each child $250 if my SS is approved. Why such a difference?

[tigger_gal]

good question .. several of us get that amout for our kids, and others get what you get and then some.. Hate to say this, but it seems that the more money you earned working, the more you receive. The people who need it don't get it, and the people that son't need it get more.. regardless we all pay into out ss. I don't know how thet decide how to pay people.

[Berkshire Road]

The decision of how much to pay people is based on credits earned; they use a formula averaging the last five years of eligible income, and you get some percentage of that. We do all pay in, but the higher your income, the more taxes you pay. That tax is really an insurance policy for disability or retirement, so the theory is that the more 'premiums' you have paid, the more gets paid out to you. I'm not saying it's necessarily fair, but that's how it works.

After you submit your initial application and have your intake interview (where you basically go in and repeat everything on your application), you will receive a questionnaire that gives you the space to describe how the disease is affecting your life. It pretty much covers everything.

If you are denied based on your date of disability, you can appeal. Sometimes it's easier to go before a judge and explain, than to try to deal with the functionaries in the SS office. Judges vary, but some of them are inclined to find in the patient's favor; if the disability is real, they find some way to justify the date of onset. But you really need to have seen a doctor in 2005, or gone to the ER, or something; otherwise you're going to have a tough time proving that you had IC then.

I don't know if any of this helps, but this is some of what I've learned along the way. I didn't really send them any specific information about IC, but I did send letters from two doctors saying that in their medical opinions, I am unable to work. Those carry a lot of weight. I had a disability lawyer handy to help me fill out the forms and tell me what terms to use to be the most persuasive. I wouldn't have hired a lawyer for that, but as I said, I had one at hand already.

Good luck with all of it. I hope you get it. Be prepared to be patient! There's a lot of waiting involved, even in my case where I was approved on my initial application.



I am not clear enough on the child drop out clause to add anything to that discussion.

[mlch]

The decision of how much to pay people is based on credits earned; they use a formula averaging the last five years of eligible income, and you get some percentage of that. We do all pay in, but the higher your income, the more taxes you pay. That tax is really an insurance policy for disability or retirement, so the theory is that the more 'premiums' you have paid, the more gets paid out to you. I'm not saying it's necessarily fair, but that's how it works.

I don't know if it is different from state to state but I thought my case worker said they determine the monthly amount by going back 13 years. I thought that was odd way of doing it but it more sense in my case anyway then the last 5 years. If they used the last 5 years my monthly amount would be 0 and not 1100. It does seem like a complicated way of determining the amount. But it is the goverment so Go figure