Waiting In Kansas City -- And Allsup Can Help

From the Kansas City Star:

If you get sick or hurt so badly that you may never work again, your last, desperate wisp of a safety net — Social Security disability benefits — is horribly tattered.

Apply for benefits now and, if statistical averages hold for the Kansas City area, it may be December 2009 before you see a check. That is if you are among the estimated one in three applicants who gets any money at all.

That wait is seven months longer than five years ago. ...

Vicki Kindred of Ferrelview in Platte County worked as a hotel and house cleaner before arthritis, fibromyalgia and other ailments made lifting mattresses, lugging sweepers and scrubbing toilets too painful. The 51-year-old woman has been trying since May 2000 to win disability benefits she believes she earned in the more than 20 years she worked previously.

Hers is a longer-than-average appeals process, she concedes. Both she and the first attorney she hired made some early mistakes trying to follow explicit but complex rules to qualify for benefits.

Loose, who is 61, worked in sales and middle management for nearly 40 years before being sidelined by diabetes, an arthritislike illness, hip replacement and finally, a nearly fatal heart attack in September 2005. He hired the Social Security and Medicare claims specialty firm Allsup Inc. to navigate the application maze for him.