Frequently Asked Questions

SSA will send you a Work History Report packet in the mail. Any form from SSA is designed to lead you into a denial. Therefore, do not try to use forms to convince SSA that you should be approved. Make sure to answer each question using information that describes the most you had to do at work. The most you had to lift, carry, stand, walk, etc. Also remember the purpose of these forms is for SSA to deny you, not to support an approval of benefits.

In most claims, SSA will want to evaluate you using their doctors. These appointments, called Consultative Examinations, or CEs, are typically very brief, superficial exams. In some instances, it might not even feel like they evaluated you. During this exam, communicate the reasons why you cannot work as you experience them on your worst day. It is important to remember that because CEs are typically superficial exams, you will want to combat inaccuracies reported by SSA’s doctors by communicating your functional limitations to your own medical providers. This means that each time you go to the doctor, you should tell your doctor every symptom you are experiencing that is preventing you from working.

Even when you are consistently communicating your functional limitations to your doctors, there might be more to what is keeping you from working. Medical Source Statements (the link/forms provided by our office that you send to your doctor) help your doctor tell SSA exactly what is keeping you from working, in SSA’s own terms. Most cases turn on these forms, so please ensure that you have your doctor complete these forms.

Under certain circumstances you can reopen a denied claim if you have good cause for doing so. Please call Ficek Law for more information.

When your application was filed, you essentially entered a long line. Unfortunately, there is no way to “skip the line” unless you are in “dire need.” A dire need situation exists when a claimant alleges, and has documented proof, of any of the following circumstances:

- The claimant is without food and is unable to obtain it.
- The claimant lacks medicine or medical care and is unable to obtain it, or the claimant indicates that access to necessary medical care is restricted because of a lack of resources.
- The claimant lacks shelter (e.g., without utilities such that his or her home is uninhabitable, homelessness, expiration of a shelter stay, or imminent eviction or foreclosure with no means to remedy the situation or obtain shelter).

The law allows a claimant to work and earn up to $1,470 a month in 2023, but the way the law is written and the way the law is APPLIED are two different things. I never advise clients not to work. That being said, I am trying to prove that my clients cannot work. Even if a claimant is only working part time, many judges reason that if someone can work at all, they can work full time. An ALJ may just mitigate the severity of a claimant’s medical condition by saying the ability to work part time means the condition must not be disabling. For more information and a year-by-year breakdown of how much you can make, please review the following link: Link

Before filing for SSI, it is important to know what the requirements are to receive benefits. Eligibility is based on you:
Being disabled; or
Being blind; or
Being over the age of 65; and
Having limited income and resources; and
Being a U.S. citizen, national, or a certain type of alien.
You cannot be confined in an institution at the expense of the government, which includes some hospitals and prisons. Other qualifications that you must meet may exist depending on your situation, which is why speaking to a social security disability attorney is always in your best interests.
For a child to qualify for SSI, they must have a physical or mental impairment expected to endure more than 12 months or result in death.

Low. About 90% of Reconsideration appeals are denied. Reconsideration Appeals are typically a “rubber stamp” of the Initial Application. Denials are a very normal part of SSA’s process and not something to take personally. SSA is a large, inefficient government system that forces the majority of claimants to file two appeals prior to any chance at approval.

In your Initial Application, you told SSA why you cannot work. This might be your physical health (back, hands, arms, legs) or your mental health (difficulty with people) or both. Each time you go to the doctor, you should tell your doctor every symptom you are experiencing that is preventing you from working. Always remember, if a medical issue is preventing you from working, but it is not consistently reflected in your medical records, to SSA, it is as if it doesn’t exist.