Reading time

Good Monday! I hope everyone had a good weekend. It was a little stressful around my household, but all-in-all, things went pretty well. I’ll give you a little update on the wife before we venture into the sordid mess that is disability land. Overall she’s doing fairly well. She was diagnosed with subclinical hyperthyroidism in the hospital (which explains the cardiac arrhythmias and feelings of shortness of breath), and is having a follow up appointment/blood test with her doctor later this week. Depending on what her lab values show, as well as her symptoms, she may or may not be placed on medication. I’ll keep you all updated as time progresses. Anyway, onwards!

I’ve been seeing a lot of “continuing disability review” claimants recently. Maybe it’s that time of year, maybe it’s the weather, I don’t know, but it seems like at least two or three claimants a day are individuals who are on disability that are in need of their “yearly check-up.” As banal as these reviews are, it does give me an interesting perspective into what conditions are “good enough” to receive a monthly check. You would think that there would be a good amount of variance in the diseases that warrant disability, but you would be wrong. First of all, I have yet to see someone whose main complaint was/is low back pain. In fact, the majority of continuing review claimants have a “mental disability,” most of which, in my opinion, are often dubious at best. We’ll use a patient that came in earlier today for an example.

First a little background. One of the main differences between this office and the place I used to work is the way in which the space is set up. We have a central waiting room, with three exams room and a secretary’s office surrounding it. Due to the way my door opens, I am able to observe a large number of our patients before they’re seen, and can watch them interact with each other, our secretary, and the old copies of Good Housekeeping my wife found for our office reading material. At the old office, however, my back was to the waiting area, and I couldn’t observe the claimants at all. Now, the gentleman I’m discussing looked like your “typical” disability patient, and was wearing the newest in summer fashion - a ratty tank-top, tight jean shorts, knee high tube socks and flip-flops (or thongs, as my mother would say). His hair was unkempt, dirty, and he said, flipping through the Good Housekeeping magazines, his beady eyes tracking the play of words on the page. He then went on to discuss the subject of the article with his companion, and they had an animated conversation about dinner rolls or something along those lines. I reviewed his chart, and it read “Continuing Disability Review – claimant has ‘mental issues.’” Alrighty, that’s specific. Anyway, I called him back, and after a little questioning, he stated that he was on disability because he “couldn’t read good.” I thought about asking him if he couldn’t do other things good as well, but figured the reference would be lost on him. Anyway, he stated that he never progressed past an 8th grade reading level, and although he had graduated high school, he couldn’t keep a job because he couldn’t read well enough, Now I’m no expert on reading, but can’t most people in the 8th grade read well enough to, oh, I don’t know, do construction? Or lawn care? Or politics? Regardless, he was otherwise totally healthy. Furthermore, he had not done anything productive with his disability money – look for a job, further educate himself, etc. He did however remark that he smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day, drank every weekend, and had a nice vacation in Mexico last month.

I know I’ve talked about this before, but it really irritates me. You and I are sacrificing a portion of our income so that people who are less fortunate can get by with day-to-day living. I’m fine with that, Lord knows there are tons of people out there who need that $400 check more than I do. What I’m not fine with is people who use their “disability” to avoid working, smoke cigarettes and go on vacation. Now, maybe he has a wealthy family or spouse, or maybe he took his hard-earned disability money and got lucky playing slots, I don’t know. The fact of the matter is that that money is not going towards what it should be, namely helping these people get off disability (if possible), and back into the work force. I’m sure you could make the same argument about Welfare, but I’m not going to go there…today. Anyway, I later found out that this gentleman, from a medical standpoint, was found to be not disabled. He appealed it, however, and an Administrative Law judge granted him disability. I mean, why do I even do this if my recommendations, along with the expert panel at social security, can just get overturned by someone with no medical experience? It makes me sick. Anyway, the moral of the story today is, if you want to get disability, don’t get injured, hire a lawyer.

Have a good rest of your day, more disability quotes tomorrow,

-DD