You are gonna laugh, but I was actually working for many years for a healthcare company as an admin, while writing and doing comedy on the nights/weekends. So I was in clerical union. Had no problem at all getting my disability pension. It was as simple as filling out the form and submitting dr. letters, then having them revised to suit the company's wording requirements. I naively thought that with my numerous health issues that SSDI would be just as simple. I worked for a couple of years after I was hurt, until the migraines started, then I just couldn't do it anymore. Just taking the subway would bring on the migraines, and if I made it into work then the fluorescent lights would bring them on, or a particular smell, and I'd inevitably end up spending half the day in an unused conference room balled up on the floor with the lights off and door shut, dark and quiet, running to the bathroom when the nausea hit. I could work with the pain from the 8 bad discs, the HIV and it's associated issues, the athsma, everything except the migraines. Once they hit I was done. I had a very cool boss who saw me kind of going downhill and put up with my memory problems and absenteeism and illness without a complaint most of the time. (He did complain once, when I was out sick a few days and locked his yankees tickets in my desk, but that's another story).
Anyway, I'm a nervous wreck now because I've spent all my retirement money over the last 4 years buying a home to retire in etc, and I was depending on my SSDI coming through. I actually thought I would be getting pension, SSDI and LTD all at the same time. The pension covers basics but when stuff like insurance and costs related to flying to NYC for back treatments bimonthly come up, I charge everything and that's starting to add up now that it's eaten up the savings and what was left of the retirement after the house purchase. My health insurer being my retirement former employer promised they would put me in a health plan in Florida when I moved, then went to "for profit" status and reneged, leaving me stuck flying back and forth for treatment or pay 2 grand in deductibles/copays. Once I have my medicare I'll be able to look for decent care down here since I'll be dual insured. Until then I just seek emergency care here.