WELCOME to the forum. Sorry to hear that you need to stop work. I finally had to stop about
3 years ago. It was all worth it. My health has improved because I can rest when I need to. If I have a bad night sleeping, I don't have to worry about
making it to work with no sleep.
Getting disability either long term or from the state is not easy. I receive both at this time. If your thinking about
long term from your company, you need to know your policy book well. Just because you pay into long term insurance doesn't mean you will get it. It's easy to get short term, but long term can be hard to get. You need all your Dr's on your side too. They will be filling out lots of paper work for you.
On state disability most lawyers willn't talk to you unless you get denied first. This means you need some income coming in to survive while waiting. I was blessed to get approve for long term and they paid me while I was waiting to hear from the state. This process can take several months. It took 9 months to hear back from the state. You will get several packets to fill out either on computer or mail in. Just answer them honestly. They will send your Dr's forms to fill out. I always made sure I was present when they filled these out. They get so busy and forget what your limits and really who you are. Lol I have had them make many mistakes without me, so this is why I do it. I have known their nurses to fill them out and give wrong info too. So I make appointments and we do the paper work together.
You will get assigned a case worker. I get to know her and her number. I call them so often to see what holding up the case. It's usually waiting on Dr's to send records to them. So this happen to me. So I just called my dr 's office and let them know I needed my records faxed to the disability office. I found out most of the time they didn't know any request. So you need to be your own advocate. Squeaky wheel gets heard as they say.
I hope I could help you some. We all had different experiences because we live in different states. Seems some states work faster then others. I didn't need a lawyer. I had numerious health problems beside fibro. I think my chronic depression is what help my case. I truly have been blessed how mine work out. I was so scared when I started the process. I still get long term from my old company I use to work for plus disability from the state. It has been 3 years. I am really not sure how long I get this long term. I kind of afraid to ask because it sure helps with extra income.
Post Edited (ak angel) : 6/20/2013 1:08:50 AM (GMT-6)