One of the work incentive rules that could be applied in the original poster's case would be an unsuccessful work attempt. If a person tried to work and worked less than 90 days and stopped because of their medical condition, the policy allows for SSA to consider that an unsuccessful work attempt. A person can have multiple unsuccessful work attempts but the work does have to end because of the medical condition. I knew of a young man who made a good initial impression and managed to get many entry level jobs in the fast food industry. However, his unmedicated schizophrenia symptoms would quickly rear their ugly head and he would lose every job within a month or two. SSA called them all unsuccessful work attempts.

SSA employees do not have a personal stake in any decision made on your claim. What they like to do, what they are paid to do is to follow the law. They do look for ways to deny or pay a claim (according to policy) because that is what they are paid to do. Their salaries are the same if you are approved or if you are denied.

Now some people may think getting approved should be easier with fewer questions asked and fewer policies to apply. But it is the existance of many of those policies that allow SSA to deny people who are not truly disabled. And although this site is a good support system for applicants for SSA, none of us can tell the truly disabled from the non disabled by a post.

Having said all that, I do think the process should be faster and more responsive, but that will take hiring enough staff and SSA has never had enough staff, IMO. And now with a hiring freeze, it will get worse and employees may end up taking short cuts which can either pay or deny the wrong people.