Hello, this is Springfield, Missouri disability attorney Jason Krebs. In today’s video, I thought we would share a recent case study that we’d had. If you’re over the age of 50 and thinking about applying for disability in Missouri or Arkansas, this may be very relevant to you. I recently had a great client, who had a lot of things going for him in his case that I think a lot of people could use to help their case.
First of all, this individual had an impeccable work history. He had a work history where he’d worked over 30 years in basically the same job, good earnings record, and it was heavy physical labor.
The second thing that he did is, he waited as long as he could to file for disability. He kept working as long as he could before he went and applied for disability. He’d gone through multiple surgeries on various body parts, some that were not particularly effective. The documentation aspect was fantastic on this because it was a lot of MRIs, x-rays, various parts of the body. All the way, you know, shoulders on down, more or less.
The third thing that he did that was very well was he had made a lot of attempts to get better. It was well documented. I don’t think any of this stuff was done intentionally on his part, other than we’d advised him to continue to document while we were waiting for the hearing.
The take away, for people that are thinking about the disability process if you’re over the age of 50 is, if you are still working, and it’s something that you think you may be looking at in the near future, especially if you have insurance right now, continue to document. Get all the tests that you can get done. The documentation aspect of this, the medical records, are vitally important to you. Especially if you think you may lose your insurance or not qualify for insurance or medical coverage after you quit working. You want to get as much documentation as you can now while you are still working, while you still have that insurance that’s going to promote somebody that looks at your file to go, “Gosh. This person made all attempts to keep working, and look at this documentation.”
The other thing is, the medication side effects. If you are having medication side effects, it’s important to report those, even if it says right on the pill bottle, it may cause drowsiness, for instance. You need to be telling your doctors if that’s what’s actually happening to you. The one mistake that an individual did make in the application process is he was over the age of 50 and he did it on his own, so we recommend anybody over the age of 50 … if you are thinking about getting social security or the disability process, that you get a lawyer to help you.
Under the law, you do have advantages starting on your 50th, and then even more so on your 55th birthday, but you could lose those if you make mistakes in the application process. We do offer a free book you can get from our website, Krebslawoffice.com or give us a call, 1-800-345-0535 or 417-883-5886 and we’ll get that out to you. We wish you the best and thanks for watching.