Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Hearing

I love where I work! It's stressful at times and I'm always busy, but I love it! 
So a quick explanation of what I do is help people get Social Security Disability Benefits. There are two different things you can apply for:
SSI=Supplemental Security Income is basically for those who haven't worked or haven't worked long enough to pay into the "system" (this is the welfare option) also, when children have disabilities they can only apply for SSI because they obviously haven't paid into the system...
DIB= Disability Insurance Benefits is for people who have worked for a certain amount of time or earned enough "work credits" to get help from the government once they become disabled.
Some people qualify for both, but usually it's one of the other. 
Anyways, I help before it goes to a hearing, which the only reason someone would have a hearing is if they are denied twice, or for my clients in NY, if you're denied once they automatically skip you to the hearing stage...I think I'm getting too detailed in what I'm trying to say, so the reason I was talking about work was because I went to a hearing in SLC today. 
A few weeks ago my Manger said that he wanted all of us in our department to go to a hearing to better help our clients to explain what happens during a hearing. 
The awesome part was that I got paid the whole time! Which I ended up being out of the office for about 3 hours, so that was pretty cool!
I clocked into work at 7am, I left the office by 7:30am to get into SLC by 8:30am for the 9am hearing. The hearing went really fast compared to other hearings (apparently the judge we had is really awesome and gets it done fast) it was only 30 mins when usually it can take an hour and a half or more! So I went in there with the attorney and observed the hearing, it was pretty cool! Plus at the end of the hearing, the judge announced that the woman does qualify for disability and will be getting benefits! That rarely happens, usually you have to wait a few months to even find out if you've been denied or not, so it was pretty cool that he said that she was approved.
It's nice to be involved with a company that truly tries to better the lives of people. I have clients that have some serious disabilities, that have worked their whole life and feel so helpless that their bodies no longer allow them to work, weather it's physical disabilities or mental ones, it disables them from working and it's nice being able to help them!
I know this isn't an interesting post, but with my memory I want to be able to remember what I did for work when I look back at these books in 10 or 20 years. 

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