This Looks Awful

     From WFTV in Orlando:

Jennifer Groover has received Social Security since she was 6 years old because she has Down Syndrome.

But 38 years later, the Social Security Administration has taken away those benefits, her only income, because they said they had no evidence or documentation right now saying she has the disability.

“We’ve got one letter that she needs to go to work,” Cynthia Groover, her mom, said. “Yeah, they said we’ll help her get a job. She can go to work. She can barely walk. Her legs and feet are so bad. She’s so full of arthritis, and there’s no way she could walk. No, she can’t. She doesn’t have the mentality to hold the job.”

In July of 2023, the family received a letter giving them 10 days to respond.

If not, the SSA said it may have to make a “finding of not disabled because of insufficient evidence.”

Notes from the Groovers said they could not get anyone to answer after they left 16 messages. ...

But on July 15, 2023, her benefits stopped after they decided “she was no longer disabled.” ...

In that year, they were evicted from their home and have struggled every month to pay their bills. ...

There has been some movement in her case.

The Groovers tell Channel 9 that Social Security wants them to get a blood test to determine if Jennifer has that extra chromosome, which has not happened yet. ...

    In case you don't know the law, the Groovers don't have to produce any evidence whatsoever for their daughter to stay on benefits. The burden is squarely on Social Security to produce evidence that this young woman has improved. The agency's inability to find its old file isn't reason to cut her off benefits. 

    You would think that anyone would realize that Down Syndrome won't go away or get better with time but you never know just how foolish these things can get. I've had a client with retinitis pigmentosa denied because there was no recent evidence that she was blind. The old evidence wasn't enough. If you know anything about retinitis pigmentosa, you know it's a one way trip. Once your vision is gone, it's gone for good and there's no more point in going to an eye doctor.

Few People Cut Off Disability Benefits Can Work Enough To Support Themselves

     From Outcomes Following Termination of Social Security Disability Insurance by Michael T. Anderson, Monica Farid, Serge Lukashanets, Denise Hoffman and Kai Filion:

...  The paper found the following:

• Among people whose benefits terminated due to medical improvement from 2005 to 2014, 16 percent of former DI-only beneficiaries and 14 percent of former concurrent beneficiaries returned to DI within five years.
• Among people whose benefits terminated due to work from 2005 to 2014, 32 percent of former DI-only beneficiaries and 50 percent of former concurrent beneficiaries returned to DI within five years.
• Fewer than half of former beneficiaries whose benefits terminated due to medical improvement had average post-termination earnings above the poverty threshold. Those whose benefits terminated due to work were more likely to have post-termination earnings above the poverty threshold than those whose termination was due to medical improvement.
• Age and certain diagnoses were strongly associated with earnings below the poverty threshold and return to disability entitlement, especially schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and intellectual disabilities. ...

    I think the attitude of many people can be summarized as "It's easy to get on Social Security disability. Except for the 'truly disabled' those drawing benefits are mostly lazy or just wusses who don't have the courage to overcome their disabilities and work. I'd never let that happen to me."  That's the attitude among many of my clients who are themselves trying to get on Social Security disability benefits. Of course, they know themselves to be "truly disabled" without realizing that prior to becoming disabled they would have naively judged someone with their health problems to not be "truly disabled" because they didn't look sick enough. Often my clients have unrealistic expectations of their own ability to recover or overcome their disabilities and delay filing claims for disability benefits for years, until they become destitute, and then feel guilty about going ahead with a disability claim when they finally do.

    This study demonstrates that it's damned difficult to get on Social Security benefits. Those who do should be recognized as "truly disabled." It should be acknowledged that they have little hope of ever again supporting themselves with work. However, we see proposal after proposal that purport to demonstrate a path for getting disability benefits recipients can be returned to work.

Beltway Bandit Report On Medical Improvement

     The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has done a study for Social Security of Selected Health Conditions and Likelihood of Improvement with Treatment. The National Academies may sound like a purely scholarly group but it's basically a Beltway Bandit paid large amounts of money to do studies for the federal government. Almost always the studies end up gathering dust.

     I suppose that some at Social Security wanted a hit list of medical conditions whose sufferers could be targeted for continuing disability reviews on the grounds that medical science has improved their conditions. They didn't get that.

     One thing I particularly loathe about this sort of Beltway Bandit report on Social Security disability is that they always begin with a statement about how the authors conceptualize the term "disability". Who the hell cares how you conceptualize the term "disability"? We're dealing with a statutory definition of disability. Social Security has to deal with it. I have to deal with it. So, shut up and deal with it yourselves! No one is interested in this sort of throat clearing.

     This tome goes on with all sorts of amazing irrelevancies such as "During a biopsy, a sample of cells is collected for testing. In most cases, a biopsy is the only way to definitively diagnose cancer (Mayo Clinic, 2019). Methods by which a sample may be collected include ..." followed by a description of biopsy methods. If you're an oncologist or other physician tasked with diagnosing cancer, biopsy methods are really important. If you're a government employees dealing with disability claims, biopsy methods aren't of much importance. Besides, I think that even the lay public already knows that most cancers are diagnosed through biopsies.

     Why put discussions of the conceptualization of the word "disability" and descriptions of biopsy methods in such a report? Well, I guess it makes the report longer. If you're going to charge your customer hundreds of thousands of dollars for a report that doesn't give them what they want -- academic support for a hit list of  claimants to attack with continuing disability reviews -- you'd better make the report at least a few hundred pages long so the customer won't feel cheated.

     I will give the National Academies this. I don't see in this report a recommendation for additional studies. You almost always see that self-serving recommendation in Beltway Bandit studies.

     I'll be happy to give Social Security a hit list of medical conditions where there's a good chance of improvement --  for free:

• Severe trauma. The one year duration requirement in the definition of disability that Social Security must use means that few who have experienced trauma are found disabled but those who are found disabled sometimes do get better after they finish all their surgeries and physical and occupational therapies.
• Metastasized cancer. Most of the time people die from this but those who beat the odds may get better after they finish all their surgeries and radiation and chemotherapy. They may relapse later but they may have an interval during which they can work.
  
• Transplant patients. It takes quite some time to get over a kidney, liver, heart or lung transplant but you can. You probably can't return to work at the moment, though, since you'll be on immunosuppressive drugs and should hardly be leaving your house but in better times you might be able to return to work.
  

     Guess what? Social Security is already going after everyone on my hit list. Most of those  on the list who are cut off don't complain too much because they are better. If my list seems short, it's because of that pesky one year duration requirement in the statutory definition of disability. You see, if you're disabled for at least a year, you're probably never going to get much better. You shouldn't expect to find much medical improvement among Social Security disability claimants.