Don't Delay

From TriCities.com, the website of the Bristol Herald Courier and WJHL, which are located in the Southwestern corner of Virginia, where it abuts the Northeastern corner of Tennessee:

The Johnson City Office of the Social Security Administration says that since 2007, the number of folks filing for disability locally has risen by thirty four and a half percent.

According to Attorney Tony Seaton, "To give Social Security credit, they make that process difficult on purpose, because otherwise everybody with a sore back would want to be on disability. Its kind of a complicated bureaucratic process., and it becomes very frustrating for a lot of people."

If you are thinking of filing a Social Security disability claim, before going to the Social Security Administration, Lawyer Tony Seaton offers one piece of advice… make sure your medical history records are in order.

Seaton's advice is terrible. Disabled people need no encouragement to delay filing Social Security claims. Most delay for months and many delay for years. They certainly do not need some vague instruction to "make sure your medical history records are in order." What does that mean anyway?

The best advice for disabled people is to get on with filing their Social Security disability claims. Do not worry about getting the advice of your doctor or getting some test or surgery. Do not worry about gathering medical records. Put aside any fantasies that recovery is just around the corner. Just get on with filing the claim! It almost never happens that a claim is denied because a claimant forgot to write down something on a claim form. That is not the problem. The process takes many months, often years. Delaying filing a claim is a terrible mistake. If the claimant is uncomfortable with filing the claim on their own, they should hire a lawyer before filing the claim. Maybe they should hire a lawyer before filing the claim in any case, but they should never delay filing the claim.