There would not be such a backlog of disability cases if qualified applicants were approved without having to appeal again and again. And again. And again. Once a doctor and a vocational rehabilitationist have concurred that a patient is disabled, there should be no further appeals necessary.
I have been in the system for more than 7 years and still have not been approved. The vocational rehabilitation experts have been unanimous that the evidence shows I cannot work. The judge disregards their testimony, misconstrues evidence, and deems everyone (including his own experts!) who says that I have objective impairments as "not credible". The "off the charts" blood test result is never mentioned in his opinions.
Several other cases could have been cleared out of the backlog if I had been approved when I first applied, instead of repeatedly going up to the Appeals Council and being sent back down to the local judge to correct his errors and back up to the Appeals Council and back down to the local judge.
The decision is supposed to be made on one thing, and one thing only: the applicant's functional capacity. But no one has ever sent me for a functional capacity evaluation (and after being out of work nearly 8 years, I cannot afford to pay for it myself, nor would I waste the money knowing that it would also be deemed "not credible" by the judge). When I self-reported that I lasted only 3 days in a part-time job, getting steadily sicker each day, before I completely collapsed, that, too, was deemed "not credible".
A former employee of State VocRehab who observes me first-hand several times a month says that if I were to ask VocRehab to find me a job, they would not be able to place me because I'm too limited; his professional opinion was similarly deemed "not credible" by the judge, who has stated that any employer should be thrilled to hire someone with my experience and qualifications. If I were healthy, they would be, but I have a long list of doctor-issued restrictions that multiple VocRehab experts say make me unemployable.
In summer 2004, a respected local specialist opined that I would never work full-time again and, while I might eventually recuperate enough to work half-time, even that was more than I could do at that time. This is not a "borderline" case and never was (at the point I applied, it took me 3 weeks to do an 8-hour freelance assignment because I was so sick). It's a concerted effort to make me give up and go away; unfortunately, I have no spouse/children/siblings to turn to for financial support, so I'm going to keep appealing until I'm approved.
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