Disability delays can lead to personal havoc

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Disability delays can lead to personal havoc

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-07-29-

disabilityinside_N.htm

By Wolf, USA TODAY

Hoaks was a corrections officer in Wyoming when he was

diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2002. He suffered a stroke

during surgery that resulted in vision problems, the loss of

strength and sensation on his right side, memory loss and

depression. He applied for Social Security disability benefits and

was denied.

Hoaks returned to work with limited duties until 2005, when his

condition worsened. Again he applied for disability benefits and was

denied. This time he fought the denial and won — 18 months later.

Hoaks, 26, was forced to declare bankruptcy and default on his

student loans. " Financially, it's killed us, " says his father,

Dale. " My wife and I will never be able to retire because of these

bills. "

Hoaks' experience with the Social Security disability system isn't

unusual. Of 2.5 million people who file disability claims annually,

nearly two in three get denied initially. If they pursue a federal

hearing, they join about 745,000 others whose appeals are

backlogged. As of June, their average wait for a decision was 529

days. The lengthy waits lead to bankruptcies and foreclosures,

drinking and drugs, depression and divorce, even suicide, according

to claimants, their representatives and employees of the Social

Security Administration.

" People are living in cars. People are going from one family member

to the next, " says Matt Greenbaum, a New Orleans lawyer who has

represented disability claimants for 30 years. " I had a hearing the

other day where the judge asked him his address. He couldn't give an

address because he didn't have one. "

In the Atlanta area, waits of 2½ years for a hearing are the norm.

Jeffery Houston of Temple, Ga., has waited more than four years.

He's sold almost everything he owned except his home and pickup.

Houston, 46, says he was injured in 1999 when 32 sheets of plate

glass fell on him, shattering his shoulder. He says he suffers from

congestive heart failure, chronic diabetes, asthma, phlebitis, sleep

apnea and deteriorating discs in his back. Yet a judge assigned to

his case ruled in 2003 that he could be a parking lot attendant.

His roommate, Cleland, begs to differ. " He wakes me up

screaming, 'I'm dying,' " she says. " He's in so much pain that he

can't even sleep like he's supposed to. "

'Lost in the system'

The backlog has a fiscal impact on states, which pay more in

Medicaid and social services to people with disabilities waiting for

decisions from the federal government. It has an impact on the

administrative law judges, who average 693 pending cases.

The financial impact is greatest on the claimants. Those who hire

lawyers or representatives customarily pay 25% of their retroactive

award if they are successful, up to a federal ceiling of $5,300.

Schille lives in his parents' basement in order to pay his

lawyer $200 a month while waiting for his case to be decided. He

wrestles with lasting effects of a heart transplant: brittle bones,

stiff joints and fatigue. Other than selling paintings, he's never

held a job.

Schille, 44, collected disability for 16 years until 2002, when

benefits were cut off based on a redetermination of his case. He's

been appealing ever since. " I'm lost in the system, and there's no

one I can call, " Schille says. " I feel like the system is so big,

one person can't possibly do anything about it. "

More than 60% of those who wait for hearings eventually win their

claims, but the delays take a toll:

• Probst was awarded benefits in 1991 for her lupus and

depression but lost them five years later. The Clayton, N.C., woman

got them reinstated, only to be told in 2001 that she had collected

them improperly and owed more than $50,000. It took five years to

win her appeal, during which time her husband worked seven days a

week. " It was like starting over, " Probst, 52, says. " I still had to

prove to them that I was sick. "

•Debbie Cline, 45, of Loganville, Ga., waited three years to collect

insurance for bipolar and manic depression. She became homeless and

moved back in with her ex-husband. " They just keep you waiting like

you're a puppet, " she says.

No 'really easy solution'

Astrue recalls his father's disability claim in 1985 after a

cerebral hemorrhage caused by brain cancer in his early 50s. He died

within 18 months. The claim was approved, but the wait " seemed like

agony, " Astrue says.

Now the commissioner of Social Security, Astrue wants to make it

easier to file for disability. He's pushing simplified procedures

for extreme cases, such as terminal cancer. He's updating and

expanding the list of impairments that qualify for disability. He's

trying to open a national center to hold electronic hearings,

thereby easing backlogs in places such as Atlanta.

All of that, Astrue says, won't be enough to stop the backlog of

appeals from growing because of an aging population. Social Security

projects cases to grow about 90,000 annually over the next five

years. That means the backlog could hit 1 million in 2010.

" I don't think there is any really easy solution, " Astrue says.

Some disability advocates want an agency overhaul. " The problems

with Social Security are on a par with a lot of the problems that

people were having with the IRS " before Congress mandated changes,

says Imparato, president of the American Association of

People with Disabilities.

Others say the system focuses on fraud rather than the disabled.

More than three-fourths of 99,000 fraud allegations reported to the

agency's inspector general last year involved disability payments.

" The system leans toward denying the case, " says Marty Ford,

director of legal advocacy for the Disability Policy Collaboration.