Guest Column: Local struggles bring national crisis home

By JIM ALLSUP

Disability advocates for years have worked to raise awareness of the challenges facing individuals seeking Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. The application process is incredibly complex and demanding, and the long wait for benefits can be extremely costly to individuals who have suffered a serious injury or illness that robs them of their ability to work.

Nationwide, more than 700,000 Americans are waiting an average of 16 months -- after two previous denials -- just to receive hearings before the judges who determine their eligibility for benefits. Another one million applicants haven't even gotten that far in the process.

Local applicants are a bit better off, but wait times for hearings at the Richmond office are still more than 11 months.

Lengthy delays for benefits impose real costs on applicants, according to a recent national claimant survey conducted by Allsup. An overwhelming majority of SSDI applicants face grave financial, emotional and health-related setbacks while stuck in the federal disability backlog.

Andrea Reiss of Woodbridge was an office manager before being diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a progressive condition that makes it difficult to breathe. During her almost two-year wait for SSDI benefits, Reiss had to sell her townhouse because she could no longer manage the stairs, and borrow money from friends and family just to keep her health insurance.

According to Reiss: "I was lucky enough to have somebody to borrow money from. There are some people who don't. How do they get by?"

Reiss' experience is typical, according to our survey. Of the nearly 300 successful SSDI claimants surveyed who came to Allsup for representation, 90 percent said they faced negative repercussions while waiting for their SSDI award. These included worsening illness, drained retirement funds or other savings, the loss of existing health insurance, missed mortgage payments, and even foreclosure and bankruptcy.

One of the biggest problems is that many applicants don't realize help is available, much the same way millions of tax filers use professional tax preparers to meet their obligations to the IRS every year. The result is that too many initial claims are denied for simple mistakes that have nothing to do with the applicant's disability status. In other cases, applicants who don't currently meet the standards for disability bog down the system, when a simple pre-qualification process would let them know quickly that they are not likely to meet the standards for benefits.

The challenge for the Social Security Administration is that they are required to completely review all claims, even when it's clear the person doesn't yet qualify. This only adds to the agency's burden.

Over the long run, additional resources for the SSA are needed to meet the backlog challenge. Unfortunately, the "long run" won't help many of today's applicants. And the nation's current budget issues are likely to put even more strain on agency budgets.

The good news is that a simple, cost-free step could make an immediate difference. Congress and the president should immediately direct the Social Security Administration to notify applicants that they have options for getting help in pursuing their claims.

As applicants move through the process, most eventually do get help. By the time applicants reach the hearing level, about 90 percent receive assistance. Unfortunately, the challenges begin much earlier in the process. Many hundreds of thousands of government- worker hours would be saved if more applications processed by the SSA were professionally reviewed, documented and prepared before they are submitted. In turn, the agency could focus its overstretched resources on making application decisions.

Ultimately, each individual applicant will decide how best to pursue a claim. For some, working alone might be their choice. For many others, the multi-year application process, the risks of mistakes and missed appeal deadlines that will further delay benefits are simply too daunting to deal with alone.

Jim Allsup is founder, president and CEO of Allsup, the country's largest non-attorney SSDI representation company.