Social Security: Injurious To Your Health

              Corruption,deceit and fraud are unveiled in the Social Security Administration's contractual state agencies: Disability Determination Services(DDS), which make all initial and Reconsideration Social Security disability benefits decisions. An average of 85% of the medical "facts" named in the denial letters issued by DDS are false. This is not simply a matter of incompetence: it's done by design in order to discourage as many claimants as possible from appealing.

            According to David Morton, M.D., a Chief Medical Consultant with SSA's DDS in Arkansas for 8 years, "Many DDS directors are more interested in political goals than delivering quality service. For example, a director may be interested more in what is politically correct than what is correct under the law. The politically correct issue may be children, so he or she will push allowance of them at the expense of adults.

            "A corrupt DDS director can order DDS employees to hold finished claims and not forward the decision to SSA unless the decision is one the director wants. For example, one DDS director physically held hundreds, if not thousands, of finished claims that were denials. Only allowances were put into the DDS computer that was connected to the SSA. The result was an artificially high allowance rate, which caused the agency to escape criticism by certain political action groups [who cried 'unfair' about the high number of denials.] The denials sat for months, preventing them from making a timely appeal."

            Since in many states the DDS director is an appointee, he or she is often unqualified for the position, and lacks the education, skill, and experience required to manage a large organization.

            As the head of DDS, the director can also control the decisions of the Chief Medical Consultant (CMC) by insisting that he or she approve the medical policies the director favors. This means that a medically unqualified person - in effect - makes your medical determination. Moreover, medical consultants are often pressured by the DDS director to make medical decisions the director wants.

            Dr. Morton cites the case of one medical examiner who routinely denied all claimants who had terminal cancer, terminal heart disease, severe arthritis and terminal lung disease. He denied on average 800 patients per year. No DDS director would terminate his contract because he made the agency look good since he moved cases so quickly. "This consultant's unfair reign of terror ended only when he died," says Dr. Morton.

            Dr. Morton took considerable personal risk in attempting to expose this fraudulent behavior. Thousands of pages of evidence were sent to lawmakers, with the only result being labeling him as a troublemaker.

           So, when Martha Stewart is implicated with any degree of malfeasence, lawmakers go into a feeding frenzy. Yet, when fraud is uncovered in a government agency with mountains of evidence, Congress yawns. They yawn because Social Security is a cash cow which they don't want to disturb in any way. Guess what. You and 150 million adults are the cash cows. While you were working, your FICA taxes were being looted to pay for all of the lame-brained subsidy programs they came up with.

            The only event that will wake legislators up is a significant number of complaints from constituants and media attention. You may want to send your outrage to Congress and the media.Congress.org

            At the same time, I may be able to solve your disability-related problem for you under law and rules which already exist. Take a look at the page view of the Table Of Contents and Chapter One in my book. If you don't see it there, then email me at fred@socialsecuritydisablty.com.