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If you receive long term disability under your employer's plan, it's important to understand that those benefits may not be permanent. Skilled NY long term disability lawyers discuss reasons why your benefits may be cancelled and what you can do about it.
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If you qualified for and receive long term disability benefits in NY from your employer, this can represent a significant source of financial relief during your absence from work. However, there are still certain events that can put your benefits in jeopardy.
Your long term disability claim case manager is not your friend, your advocate, or your confidant. Don’t be fooled. No matter how empathetic, how friendly or how helpful your case manager appears to be, your case manager is your adversary. What you say, can and will be used against you in not only your claim, but in any legal proceeding in the future. Be careful.
Disability insurance companies will often ask you to describe a "typical" day. This is a trap for claimants who suffer from a condition with variable symptoms. If you have such a condition, you generally have "bad" days and "better" days. You may have days when you are feeling so bad that you must stay in bed all day, but you may also have days in which you could perform limited activities. You should tell the insurance company both what you can do on your worst days and what you could do on your better or best days. Be careful about the terminology that you use. Do not substitute "good" day for "better" or "best" day. When you describe a day as a "good" day it implies that on those days you are symptom free, which may not be the case.
The success of a long term disability claim is dependent on proving that your symptoms are disabling. A diagnosis of a particular illness is not enough. You will need to establish that the symptoms that you suffer prevent you from performing the duties of your occupation. How do you do this? By submitting objective evidence, such as MRI's, SPECT scans and other test results; the opinions of your treating physicians, and by providing a statement explaining how your symptoms make you unable to do your job. We recommend that a claimant keep a contemporaneous diary of all symptoms. For instance, if you had a migraine headache on Monday, that should be put in your diary. If you could not get out of bed on Tuesday, that also should be placed in your diary, and so on and so on. By keeping a diary, you can be very specific. Specificity makes your symptoms more credible and allows them to be viewed and evaluated in context.
Riemer Hess LLC, is a firm of ERISA and long term disability attorneys headquartered in New York City. For over 30 years, we have built a thriving practice and national reputation based on our unwavering commitment to protecting and fighting for people with disabilities. We have obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits, settlements, and judgments.
Riemer Hess LLC
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New York, New York 10016
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