Prudential Insurance Company recently overturned a long term disability denial for our client under an own occupation period of disability. Our client worked for a large hospital system as a vascular lab technologist. The client was suffering from relapsing, remitting Multiple Sclerosis with optical neuritis and migraines. Prudential originally denied benefits based upon their opinion that the medical records showed no evidence that the claimant's physical condition has significantly changed from baseline or that she was experiencing active flare of her Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. On appeal, our long term disability team prepared documents and obtained support from the claimant's treating neurologist and other physicians in support of her claim for benefits under the plan. Following the submission of the appeal documents, Prudential reversed their decision to deny the client benefits and admitted that client was, in fact, disabled under the terms of the plan.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in Pennsylvania. This subject has been very much in the news with the focus being on the NFL's handling of the Ray Rice situation. Unfortunately, domestic violence is an everyday occurrence in our communities and many tragic situations are not in the headlines. When someone is the victim of domestic violence, those in the community would expect that they can turn to the local authorities for protection. What you may not realize is that those that are supposed to be there to help may actually inflict additional harm.