Disability and depression

[Guest guest]

Happy holidays group!

One of the guys who responded to my query concerning disability advised that I should be certain my depression is not documented within any health update forms provided to my LTD insurance company. The concern is they will drop my disability saying my depression is not an HIV issue and construe my depression as a reason not to qualify for my original reasons for going on disability.

Of course when I went on disability, depression was certainly one of the reasons I did, along with all the other health issues that were going on.

I am hoping one or more of you would chime in on this concern, and provide articles and material showing how HIV/AIDS and depression are connected.

I am taking the advice of another responder and putting together a list of all the health issues I tend with on a daily basis to present to my new HIV/IM/ID doc next week. It is very important he understand I am not a recently diagnosed HIV patient and that I have extensive experience with HIV care givers and doctors over the years. In other words to quote one of our favorite drama queens "Don't f___ with me boys! This ain't my first time at the rodeo!". I believe that was the correct quote by Joan Crawford to the board members of Pepsi?

Don

[Guest guest]

I can't answer your question about disability and depression, except to say that I know the rate of depression among people with HIV is much higher than the general population, both from personal experience working with people with HIV and from reading postings to this list for many years.But I do want to correct one misstatement about mental illness and long term disability insurance policies. Yes, it is true that most such plans limit claims based on mental illness to two years of benefits. But that is no reason not to get treated for psychological symptoms or to get treated off the medical record at a clinic. So long as there is sufficient evidence of physcial functional limitations due to HIV/AIDS, an LTD claim should be approved without regard to the two year limit for mental illness claims, even if you are being treated for depression

concurrently. As others have noted in recent postings, it is criticical that you and your doctor document the physical symptoms of HIV thoroughly in the medical record. And if the disability insurerer tries to say, for example, that fatigue is due to depression, your doctor must write a letter that the fatigue is secondary to HIV disease. It would also be helpful if the doctor said that the depression is secondary to HIV disease as well, although it's not clear if this would be sufficient to avoid the 2 year limit. But by all means get treated for depression, ideally under the supervision of your primary doctor. Although I have no study to back me up on this, I'm convinced that depression is one of the main causes of treatment failure due to poor adherence. Treating depression is part of treatting HIV.One of the guys who responded to my query concerning disability advised

that I should be certain my depression is not documented within any

health update forms provided to my LTD insurance company. The concern

is they will drop my disability saying my depression is not an HIV

issue and construe my depression as a reason not to qualify for my

original reasons for going on disability.

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Of course when I went on disability, depressi on was certainly one of

the reasons I did, along with all the other health issues that were

going on.

Â

I am hoping one or more of you would chime in on this concern, and

provide articles and material showing how HIV/AIDS and depression are

connected.

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