Top 5 Tips on Keeping Your Long Term Disability Payments
Published: January 29, 2009
Go to the doctor. Regularly. Make sure you are clear with the doctor about new symptoms. If you are shy or nervous and feel uncomfortable about doing this, bring along a family member.
Keep a diary of symptoms. Have your client keep one too. We have a sample form on our website here . This is important. It lets the disability carrier know how disabling your condition really is. Send the diary to the LTD carrier and advise the carrier if it is a representative, i.e. typical, week or week for you. Keep a copy.
Ask your doctor about the combined effects of your medications. Sometimes your condition alone may not be disabling but the combination of your medications can have a synergistic or additive effect such that the medication side effects can be disabling.
Do your own research. There are many wonderful and informative websites that can help you understand your condition. For some examples of potential avenues of research, go to our medical links page here. You can then provide useful information to your doctor…and the carrier.
If your doctor will not take the time to help you…find another who will! Occasionally, doctors become overwhelmed and refuse to fill out those forms submitted by the Insurance Company. Without your doctor’s assistance, you lose. Consider making an appointment with him or her, explaining the situation and then offering to pay for his or her time to fill out the report. Doctors become resentful if they feel taken advantage of and offering to pay for their time is reasonable. We’ve had many cases where the treating doctors were not cooperative because they were upset about the paperwork. Once we explained the situation to them, they have all, thus far, been very willing to help.
