Disability Benefits Battle
By: Staff Writerwbaltv.com, Baltimore
September 21, 2011
If you become seriously ill or injured and can't work, how will you pay your bills?
You could apply for Social Security disability benefits. But the 11 News I-Team has discovered you could be turned down even if your doctors say you are disabled.
Lee Davis told WBAL-TV's Deborah Weiner that since an accident at work in 2003, he has lived with debilitating pain, neurological and spinal cord problems and temporary paralysis.
"I'm not the same person I was," said the 46-year-old former truck driver.
The main provider for his Harford County family for nearly half his life, Davis has been unable to work for four years, though he tried to return. He and his wife, Vicki, an oil company bookkeeper, find themselves on the verge of losing their home, Weiner reported.
"I'm a liability as a truck driver," Lee Davis said. "Do you want a 70,000-pound rig going down the road, and I can't feel the brake pedal?"
"I felt like I've done everything in my life and worked hard, and these benefits should be available to people who need them."
His wife, Vicki, said, "We had to call Wells Fargo and say we're running into trouble. The savings is gone. It's over. The beautiful run for 26 years in our marriage is over."
Given the years Davis worked, along with his health, the couple assumed his was an ideal case for Social Security disability benefits, which are paid to people who cannot work because of a medical condition that is expected to last more than a year.
After filing an application online, Davis waited two years for an answer - four times longer than normal, according to Weiner's report. The application was denied.
"I felt like I've done everything in my life and worked hard, and these benefits should be available to people who need them," Davis said.
Lee's voluminous medical records, collected by Vicki, seem to make a perfect case for benefits, Weiner reported. Two doctors labeled him "disabled." He was diagnosed with the nerve disorder peripheral neuropathy and the painful spine condition arachnoiditis -- two incurable disorders.
Yet Davis was still denied.
Read more: http://www.wbaltv.com/news/29256372/detail.html#ixzz1YhP52HiI
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