Originally Posted by soccertese

hi, would greatly appreciate any opinions about the law firm i hired to do my application.

i'm a 59 year old male, had a 1 person company for 20years where i installed pharmacy computer systems into retail pharmacies, did everything from installing, maintaining computers and writing the software.
was diagnosed in 2001 with parkinson's. stopped working in 2011 and applied for SSDI Nov1, 2013 and got a rejection on DEC 4th.
SS stated "The objective medical evidence prior to the date you were last insured for SS disability benefits on DEC 31,2012 is not sufficient to fully assess your potential work related limitations and abilitites. Therefore, a period of disability cannot be determined.

I can understand why SS determined this based on my application. I rarely see my neuro, exams are just a short visit and no formal testing, just a formality to get my RX refills authorized. When medicated, to the untrained eye I don't appear to have pd, medication works well. Unmedicated I have major pd symptoms, freezing so I take baby steps and halt, fatique, stuttering, disabled to the point that I just lay or sit down.

Anyway, I thought I might have a difficult time proving disability because I didn't have a clear record of progression on my medical records because my neuro always saw me medicated, my customers rarely saw me, I didn't allow friends to see me unmedicated and I live alone. Thus I hired a law firm to do the application and brought these issues up and they really didn't give me any odds on whether I'd get SSDI but I hired them anyway because they were recommended and I knew I couldn't do this application on my own. I went to their offices, brought them a detailed writeup of my history and concerns, medical records proving I was diagnosed 12 years ago. I had also visited my neuro and GP just prior to hiring the law firm to let them know i was filing for SSDI and they both said they would try to help the best they could. At the visit the paralegal asked me if i wanted to file right now and we did over the internet. She didn't care to see what my full medical records looked like or talk to my doctors to see what they had written, I assume she expected my initial application to be rejected so why work that hard?

So anyway, the law firm is filing an appeal. They sent me a list of questions to answer which I had already answered. It seems obvious to me I need to be examined more fully and unmedicated and have brought this up with the paralegal, will SSDI have me independently examined and she says she can't guarantee this. I'm getting a little worried here about how blase this legal firm is, maybe they don't get serious until there is a trial? Maybe they want to drag this out and get a bigger fee? I'm afraid to start complaining but I'm feeling like a number with these guys, any advice? I would think it would be hard to fire them but something seems weird here, so far they've filed the initial application, took about an hour in their officer to file on line while i was there and they emailed me a list of questions to answer after the rejection. i have sent them 2 emails subsequently asking questions about their questions and no response days later.

I'm thinking they just don't think I'll get approved until I go to trial so why put in that much effort until then or maybe they are just increasing their fee, i can understand that. But I also can't believe SSDI wouldn't approve someone who is clearly unable to work when unmedicated and 12 years after a pd diagnosis, who in the world would hire me at almost 60?

Any advice on dealing with this large local firm, dont want to alienate them and whether I should take the bull by the horns and schedule my own evaluation with another neurological organization that would do a more comprehensive evaluation?