I realize that it's the federal government, so we shouldn't expect too much, but that just ****** me off.............if they say, "If you do A plus B, we will give you C" then how the heck do they justify saying, "Nah, we aren't giving you C after all" ????????????????????

Thanks for the well wishes, but I was accepted.......last year ( thank God !) Still trying to wrap my mind around the randomness of some of their decisions. A friend of mine (we have bonded over pain) just got her first denial.....she's in severe pain after having 8 surgeries for a rotator cuff repair in the last year, as well as countless procedures to drain the abscesses. It keeps getting infected, they have to take out the stapes and now there is no decent tissue left to try to staple, just bone rubbing on bone..........but SSA says she had a rotator cuff tear and had it repaired, so she can go back to work. Ummm.......okay ?

WHEW!! Finz, so glad that you were accepted!!

The bad thing about your friend -- the economy is soooooooooo bad right now that many people may BE trying to get something that they don't deserve -- Soc Sec is probably being even TOUGHER than usual. Since both YOU and I had such a rough time -- you can imagine what this means for your obviously deserving friend -- BLESS HER HEART!!! I hope that she gets a GREAT lawyer STAT!!

The wife of a local doc had rotator cuff surgery with NO complications -- and it took OVER six months for her to be pain-free and regain range-of-motion -- so I cannot even IMAGINE what your friend must be going through. Everyone that I have talked to says that rotator cuff surgery at its BEST is gruesome. The doc reviewing your friend's case MUST be totally CLUELESS!!

I think that we have GOT to keep in mind that whether or NOT we get "accepted" depends ON our state Soc Sec doctors. I would imagine that Soc Sec does NOT pay as much as private practice -- so, maybe it is a matter of scraping the bottom of the barrel? IF a state has an overabundance of docs, then Soc Sec GETS "good" docs -- if doctors are in short supply, then perhaps Soc Sec gets docs who are lacking in fundamental skills?