Thanks Tessa. I spoke to so many attorneys, it is ridiculous! One guy would meet with me for a free consult, but didn't want my husband there or even in the waiting room...thin walls. Umm, no thanks! One guy I spoke to charged $2,000 to just look at my claim to see if I had a case. Then if he decided to take the case it would be 1/3 of the 6-month benefit...that would have been over $5,000. I went thru the referral process, one guy referred me to another guy, who referred me to another guy who referred me to the $4,000 guy. We met with him and he would only look at the denial letter and dr letters...he wouldn't look at anything else until the fee was paid. My husband asked him the odds of winning this type of case and he said "oh...50/50" those odds are not that good. He said the insurance companies are in the business to deny claims. We didn't feel good about it or taking the $4,000 gamble. If I had $4,000 to just throw away, I wouldn't worry about the appeal. My husband is furloughed again and I haven't been paid in 10 months. Thankfully SSD will start next week, hopefully, but there is no back pay with SSD for me.

I did start a thread a while back on STD/LTD appeals. The problem with attorneys is that the ones that handle SSD do not handle STD/LTD claims. STD/LTD requires knowledge of employment law and ERISA. Now I do not have much time left. They gave 180 days for the first appeal and only 60 days for this final appeal. I am gonna have to file it myself. But would like to have some good documents on RSD to send with my appeal.

I am so over all of this...