At one of my recent disability hearings, the ALJ stopped the hearing after only 5 minutes of questioning and announced that he was approving the claim.  Although the Judge offered several reasons for the decision, the very first one mentioned was the Claimant’s consistent medical treatment throughout his claimed period of disability. 

If you have serious physical and/or mental conditions that prevent you from working, the most important reason for continuing to seek medical treatment is your health, not the outcome of your disability claim.   But it bears mentioning that the judge deciding your disability claim may well be skeptical about the severity of your condition(s) if you aren’t trying to do something to get better. 

Of course, most ALJs live in the real world, and understand (at least in theory) that sometimes uninsured, poor claimants lack the funds to pay for medical treatment.   They also understand that sometimes people may give up hope in the medical or psychiatric profession after they’ve failed to get better in spite of such treatment.  But I think many judges still feel, at least at some level, that if things are really that bad, the claimant would at least try to do something to alleviate their suffering.   

So for the sake of your health, if not for your disability claim, you need to persist over the many obstacles that might get in the way of your efforts to continue to receive medical treatment.  If lack of insurance or finances is the issue, you should go to your local Indiana FSSA office and apply for free or reduced cost health insurance. Indiana offers many options to help disabled Hoosiers obtain health insurance, including traditional Medicaid, to M.E.D. Works (a Medicaid ”buy-in” program for working people with disabilities), to the Healthy Indiana Plan (“H.I.P.,” which covers basic health services for a modest financial contribution).   

Another option for those with limited means is to obtain care from a free or reduced-cost health clinic.  Our office maintains a list of clinics and hospitals throughout the state.  Contrary to many people’s assumptions, you usually can obtain excellent care at these establishments, and, as a bonus, many of these medical providers actually are more willing to help claimants obtain necessary documentation for their disability claims than are many private physicians. 

Finally, if you aren’t getting ongoing medical care because you’ve “given up,” remember that you can always get a second opinion.  You should also keep in mind that the medical landscape changes rapidly in our country, and new treatments become available on a frequent basis.  But it’s unrealistic to expect your doctor to automatically think of you when discovering a newly-available treatment if they haven’t seen you in 6 months to a year!

The most recent processing statistics for the 3 Indiana Offices of Disability Adjudication and Review (ODAR) are out.  The good news is that the Evansville ODAR is one of the most efficient offices in the nation in terms of processing time, ranking 7th out of the 143 ODARS in the nation.  The bad news is that Indianapolis and Ft. Wayne continue to rank as two of the lowest in the nation (130th and 135th out of 143, respectively).   Indianapolis ODAR is trying to speed up its processing time by sending some cases to other offices to be “worked up” (i.e., get ready for hearing).  December’s numbers suggest that this approach seems to working because the Indy ODAR had been ranking 139th the month before.

Here are the processing times for each of the 3 Indiana ODARS as of December 2, 2009:

Indianapolis — 579 days

Ft. Wayne — 593 days

Evansville — 298 days