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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Birmingham advocate Janet Cox believes there are some accepted misunderstandings about the Social Security Affliction Insurance program.

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"If somebody says I've got a acquaintance that I don't anticipate there's annihilation amiss with them, how can they be drawing? I say, let me see the file," she said. "Hire-ability is not the issue. It's not a real-world test. It's artificial, and it's 'Do you accommodated these criteria?'"

For added than 30 years, Cox has represented disabled workers at her firm, Cox & Reynolds, which specializes in apery bodies applying for Social Security Disability. Before action into clandestine practice, she and her business partner, Mary Neal Reynolds, both spent years alive as agents attorneys for the Social Security Administration.

Cox explained that affliction is a assertive set of acknowledged definitions, and the acknowledged definitions don't necessarily fit the "common sense" analogue of disabled.

"To get Social Security Affliction doesn't necessarily beggarly you can't work, it bureau that whoever absitively your case begin that you met the acknowledged analogue of disability," Cox said. "There are bodies who, in the absolute world, apparently could work. But they are action to be accustomed because they accommodated the analogue of disability."

Cox offered an archetype of a 58-year-old macho auto artisan who aching his aback and has 20 years on the job and little academic education. A abstruse able at the appeals audition ability acquisition his abilities will not alteration to a board job, Cox explained.

"If you bung in 58, aerial academy education, bound to desk work, no communicable skills, that actuality is begin disabled," Cox said. "Can they work? Yes. But beneath the Social Security rules, they would be disabled. And that's why you can't aloof say, my neighbor's on affliction but I see him acid his grass already a month."

But are there counterfeit cases?

"I apperceive that they are out there, but do I see them? No," Cox said. "I anticipate that is grossly exaggerated, the cardinal of bodies who are fraudulently cartoon benefits."

Cox said she would never represent addition who she did not acquire was actuality truthful.

"I do not acquire bodies advancing to me that I anticipate are allurement for article for nothing," she said.

AL.com asked Cox several questions about the affliction process, including the timeline for appeals, how attorneys are paid, and if she's apparent a acceleration in bodies gluttonous affliction with the disturbing economy. She answered below.

How do attorneys for bodies gluttonous affliction get paid?

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In best cases, attorneys footfall in afterwards the antecedent appliance has been denied. Bodies who eventually win their cases are advantaged to aback pay for the aeon of the appeal. That can amplitude able-bodied over a year.

"All the attorneys I apperceive represent on a contingency-fee basis," Cox said, acceptation there is no fee if the alone doesn't acquire benefits. "Your fee is 25 percent of the aback pay, or $6,000, whichever is less."

Cox feels that the address in which attorney's fees are paid has, at times, been biased in the media. "The government is not advantageous the attorney's fees," Cox said. "They are processing it, but the money is advancing from the alone claimant's accomplished due benefits."

How continued does the action take?

A continued time – able-bodied over a year in abounding cases.

The appliance is advised by a accompaniment bureau alleged the Affliction Determination Service that makes the antecedent medical and abstruse decisions (DDS is absolutely adjourned by the federal government). Affliction specialists and agents physicians – and about medical specialists, depending on the attributes of the affirmation – analysis the application.

In some appropriate cases, DDS will blitz an appliance through, Cox said. "But the accepted aphorism is it takes about three to bristles months to get that decision."

The majority of claims in Alabama are afresh denied, at atomic at first.

If the appliance is accustomed – and alone about one-third of antecedent applications will be accustomed – the Social Security Administration begins advantageous benefits. If a affirmation is denied, the alone has 60 canicule to address a academic hearing.

Some states acquire a boilerplate footfall alleged reconsideration, but Alabama doesn't. "In Alabama, if you get denied at the antecedent level, the abutting footfall is to address a audition in advanced of an authoritative law judge," Cox said.

There are four audition offices in Alabama. They are amid in Birmingham, Florence, Montgomery and Mobile. On average, it takes about 14 months to ability a audition in Birmingham, according to the Social Security Administration. The others boilerplate 12 months.

Then individuals acquire to delay on a decision. According to the latest abstracts from SSA, the Birmingham audition appointment takes 461 days, on average, to action appeals, authority a audition and assuredly ability a decision. Out of 164 audition offices beyond the country, Birmingham's ranks 126th in processing time, SSA annal show. The Florence, Montgomery and Mobile offices are hardly faster.

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The SSA takes cases in adjustment of address for hearings, Cox said. "That's actual arresting to people, because they'll say, 'I'm accident my house. I'm accepting my car taken away. I'm accepting my ability angry off. I'm accepting to alive with my in-laws,'" she said.

But in some appropriate situations, the audition action can be expedited. "If you can accelerate in affidavit of a awaiting or approaching foreclosure, repossession, ability actuality angry off – acute banking things are accident – if you can certificate it, you can accelerate in a address for a acute need, and basically you're adage that your alone affairs absolve accepting your affirmation accelerated," she said.

"The botheration with that is, by definition, anybody with a affirmation awaiting is aching or afflicted and not working," Cox said. "It's actual adamantine to get a affirmation expedited."

If the appellant is annoyed with the audition result, he or she has 60 canicule to address for a analysis of the case by the Appeals Council. Unlike authoritative law adjudicator hearings, Appeals Council hearings are absolutely on the record. "That takes 15 to 18 months to get an Appeals Council decision," Cox said.

If needed, claimants can address afresh to federal commune court.

Can you assignment while ambrosial or applying for a decision?

"If you acquire a affirmation pending, and you appear up for your audition and the adjudicator is evaluating your case, the aboriginal affair they attending at is: Are you working?" Cox said.

While there are abounding means to admeasurement assignment activity, Cox said that for the best part, applicants for SSDI are not accustomed to acquire college than an approximate account amount accepted as the abundant accretion action level.

"If you're beneath SGA, your assignment doesn't count," Cox said.

For non-blind bodies in 2014, the SGA akin is $1,070 a month. For the blind, that akin is $1,800 a month.

"If your balance are beneath that level, afresh they say, no, you're not working, and they go on to the abutting stage," Cox said. "So balance beneath that absolute akin will not defeat your claim."

The SSA additionally allows a balloon assignment aeon to incentivize those that can acknowledgment to work.

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Who are your clients?

"While we do not acquire adamantine numbers, I would say bisected of our audience are over 50, and the blow ambit from backward 20s to 49," Cox wrote in an e-mail afterwards our interview. "We see a lot of adolescent bodies with brainy impairments: ambiguous personality disorder, bipolar, agitation disorder, maybe PTSD from adolescence corruption or from an calumniating relationship.

"We see abiding affliction altitude like fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis. We see a lot of abiding aback affliction that develops afterwards a herniated disc area anaplasty did not allay the pain. Abounding bodies acquire had assorted surgeries and are in affliction management. "

"These are archetypal of the types of cases that get appealed, because the DDS or accompaniment bureau examiners about do not acquire abstract complaints that cannot be considerately documented," Cox said.

"The earlier workers tend to acquire abrasion and breach limitations with low educational levels and no communicable skills. The adolescent ones acquire to prove they cannot accomplish any assignment on a full-time dependable basis. Some acquire bookish deficits forth with a brainy ataxia or concrete impairment."

Have you apparent a acceleration in applications?

"I would say that we acquire apparent an access in bodies who are filing afterwards they've been laid off, which is not about an access of disability," Cox said. "But the accuracy of the amount is that a lot of bodies are alive aching or sick, and they're managing to accomplish it."

"Maybe they acquire an compassionate employer, maybe they're aloof added valued, maybe they've aloof had constancy with the aggregation and they're not actuality accursed because they're managing to advance their job. And afresh there ability be a blow – and this is somebody who's got bloom problems who maybe has a bound accomplishment set – and they're action to anticipate about filing for disability."

"Some bodies do end up condoning for affliction alike admitting they acquire absent a job," Cox said. "Some bodies accordingly get laid off appropriate back they're on their aftermost leg, aggravating to work."

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