My daughter and I have been waiting for some kind of, ANY kind of progress with her getting SSI. She was denied and the appeal was denied too, so now it is in the process of waiting for an Administrative Law Judge to hear her case. We’ve been waiting around 6 months for the hearing, but were told it could take up to 14 months in our area.
I read somewhere that I could contact my state senator about the case but did not have much hope it would help anything. I sent an email to the senator and received a call from the senator’s office around six weeks later asking for more information about the case. We didn’t hear anything for the next few months and then was called again by the senator’s office asking if she needed any help updating her medical records with SSI. Her doctor submitted additional records with a diagnosis of childhood schizophrenia about 2 months ago and right after SSI received the records they called and asked my daughter if she ever intended to go back to work. Of course she said she could not work and they tried to get her to take on a job for 10 - 20 hours a week and they would pay partial SSI benefits. She said she could not even work for that long, which is very true. They seemed to want to talk her out of appearing before a judge for SSI.
So my daughter received an email for the senator’s office two days ago saying they had an update on her case and will call her within the next few days. Soooooo, maybe the senator’s office had some kind of pull.
Here’s praying and keeping our fingers crossed that this will be finally be good news. Our first denial was when she applied for SSI at the end of 2016 and we didn’t appeal that denial. Filed again in 2017 - denied, then appealed - denied, then requested a judge to hear the case.
There have been rumors (maybe fake news maybe not?) floating around that there will be more of a push to having folks on ssi and medicaid working some hours a week. For our family members with scz, medicated and unmedicated, work scheduling requires them to be able to perform job duties according to a schedule. For so many, they just can’t have a better day just because its scheduled.
Calling someone with scz to ask them if they ever intend to go back to work is really a no-win question for our loved ones isn’t it. If they say yes does social security write down they are capable?
It seems to be getting more and more difficult for our loved ones to get assistance. I too have wondered about the work issue if you have a person with a serious mental illness who is unable to work. There have to be exceptions. Otherwise I espect lots of court cases. Good luck with getting the benefits. I know it can take awhile.
@dkgreg think the decision to approve has a lot to do with whether or not and to what extent the person’s ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) are affected and also what their annual earned income has been in recent years. We got word that our SSI application was just approved (first time, @ 7 months) but is pending our son going to the SSA office for an “interview”. He has been hospitalized on and off for literally half of this past year plus was homeless living out of a car for 3 months and has never made more than $3,000/yr. His illness is so bad right now (disoriented, derailment of speech, word salad, etc.) that we have someone with him one on one for several hours a day in a special home. So we are awaiting his doctor to write a letter stating he cannot go to or conduct an interview and as his legal guardian, I will go to the SSA office and see what happens next.