How to Handle Claim Denial of Short/Long-Term Disability

Hi, it’s Brian Bronson. We’re back with another Legal Tip Tuesday with QuatriniRafferty.

So, one of my practice areas is Short-Term and Long-Term Disability Litigation. That’s when someone’s been denied a claim for shorter or long-term disability. So, the situation arises where a client has just been off of work for a surgery, they’ve had a back surgery, all of a sudden they can’t go back to work, they’re expecting a paycheck through the short-term disability program, and they get a call saying “you’ve been denied.”

So, what do you do? One is: Don’t Panic. There are things that can be done. There are people out there that are willing to help. And the number one thing you should do is contact your attorney, an attorney specializing in short-term and long-term disability litigation as soon as possible.

Number two is you should be gathering together information. And that’s information such as your insurance policies, your doctor’s addresses. You know, quite often we meet with people and they’re very frank frantic. They’ve been denied, they don’t know when their next source of income is coming, their bills are due, they think their car is going to get repossessed in a very short period of time, and you’ve got to stay calm. You’ve got to gather that information together about your doctors, and specialists information about your employer, the policies from your employers, such as the short and long-term disability policies, and you need to get those as soon as you can.

We encourage you to do so in writing. A lot of the federal laws that apply to whether information is accessible, it requires that there be a written request for that information so, an email to your HR (Human Resources) saying “Please provide me with my short-term disability policy”, “Please provide me with a denial letter.” You need to know why you were denied in a case such as these to determine what you need to do to perfect your appeal to overturn that decision.

So again, don’t panic, gather together the basic information, get that information to your attorney, and then you need to hand the case off to your attorney, and you need to focus on your medical condition, your doctoring, getting better as fast as you can. Getting to see the right doctors to help your medical condition, and let your lawyer handle the legal issues and we’re happy to do that for you here at QuatriniRafferty.