Lung transplant surgery is only necessary when an organ fails as a result of an injury, illness, or a defect. If you have received a lung transplant, or are on the donor waitlist, you may be eligible for long term disability. A failing lung requires constant monitoring and this means working and earning a living is virtually impossible while you’re waiting for lung transplantation.
Maintaining employment after surgery is often just as impossible. You’ll require constant monitoring immediately following surgery and the recovery process will be long and difficult. Anti-rejection medications are necessary and even then, you may suffer side effects from the medications themselves and other difficulties as your body adjusts to and begins to work with the new organ.
An Important Fact
Before we get into each of the four strategies, you need to know this: Just because you have had lung transplant surgery or you’re waiting for lung transplantation does not get you long-term disability benefits. Proving you cannot work is how you increase your likelihood of getting approved for long-term disability benefits for your lung transplantation.
Your best chance at getting the long-term disability benefits you need includes pulling together the strongest evidence of how having lung transplant surgery or waiting for lung transplantation has specifically affected your ability to work. That’s why it’s important to carefully review the requirements of your specific long-term disability policy or program to ensure you meet all the necessary criteria.
We can review your long-term benefits policy or program to ensure you meet the criteria.
The 4 strategies that Tucker Disability Law uses to help win your lung transplant disability insurance claim. They are:
Strategy 1:
Keep a daily journal to detail what you are feeling and how and when you are limited. This is the best way to give your physician specific instances of how your condition prevents you from being able to work and perform even the most routine tasks.
- This is the best way to give your physician specific instances of how your condition prevents you from being able to work and perform even the most routine tasks.
- Note every time you had to stop working due to anti-rejection medication side effects, shortness of breath, diarrhea or other symptoms.
- When you are reacting and suffering from lung transplant surgery or waiting for lung transplantation, have co-workers, family, and friends take a video of you. Note the date, time and place of each incident.
- We’ve developed a journal that helps you provide details about the severity and duration of your chronic lung transplant symptoms and any limitations or restrictions it imposes on your ability to perform your job.
The more you document, the greater your chance of qualifying. Click here or use the yellow box to the right to get my “Proven-to-Work” Capability Journal now.
Strategy 2:
Make sure to see your pulmonologist/lung specialist and primary care doctor on a regular basis.
- Up-to-date medical documentation and evidence supporting your lung transplant condition are vital to support your claim for long-term disability due to your lung transplant. This is work that you must do and is critical to the success of your claim. Remember, your insurance company is not your friend. They do not want to pay disability benefits. You must overwhelm them with evidence.
- Your pulmonologist/lung specialist and primary care doctor need to know how your chronic lung transplant symptoms affect your everyday life, how they may change from time to time, and any side effects of your treatments and medications. The more evidence you show to your doctors, the more likely they are to take you seriously.
My Capability Journal will help your doctor understand your physical and mental limitations. Start journaling today.
Strategy 3:
Let your family and friends know about your condition and its symptoms to understand why you can’t work.
- Although you may want to keep your health issues private, this is critical, since insurance companies often ask those close to you about your symptoms and how they affect you.
- These same people can be the best witnesses in a disability claim. Give your friends and family copies of my journal, and ask them to journal your limitations.
- Have them take pictures or videos of you struggling. A picture is worth 1,000 words. A video is worth a million words.
Strategy 4:
You have no chance of getting a claim approved without a doctor signed Attending Physician Statement Form (APS).
- Not having this form completed, or not completed in its entirety, could delay approval of your claim or even result in your claim being denied.
- In other words, having a doctor willing to advocate for you by completing disability paperwork can mean the difference between a swift disability benefit approval and a lengthy legal disability battle.
- Your insurer uses the APS form to assess whether, based on the restrictions supported by your doctor, you can perform the material duties required by your own job, or any job for which you are reasonably qualified.
Getting a doctor to fill out and sign your disability form is a must-have to qualify for long-term benefits for your chronic lung transplant symptoms or awaiting lung transplantation.
But here is where the insurance companies rig the system or stack the odds against you.
The rigging starts with the Attending Physician Statement form. The form provided by the insurance company is “one size fits all” and is not specifically for someone who has lung transplant symptoms or is awaiting lung transplantation.
As a result, the form makes it impossible for a doctor to detail your limitations caused by a lung transplant.
Here’s the Insurance Company’s biggest trick:
Their Attending Physician Statement form does not ask the right diagnostic questions, meaning the questions the insurance company doesn’t want the doctor to answer. Insurance companies only ask the questions they want answered, but those aren’t the questions that help you win your claim.
To that end, our clients have exclusive access to a customized Attending Physician Statement form created precisely for each individual with chronic lung transplant symptoms and any other specific limitations particular to that client.
We offer a “Proven-to-Work” Attending Physician Statement form for persons with bronchiectasis.
This time-tested, individualized form is only available to our clients.
Our lung transplant APS form asks the right questions to get the right answersBy retaining us and using this personalized APS tool, you have the best chance to succeed and the fastest path to getting long-term benefits for your chronic lung transplant symptoms.
NOTE:
Despite the APS form being central to your STDI/LTDI claim, doctors are not required to complete disability paperwork and sometimes a doctor declines to do so.
If this happens, certain information and strategies may help you secure the necessary medical support for your disability claim. We have a guide specifically addressing ways to get your doctor to complete and sign your APS form. Click here to get it.
Tucker Disability Law can help assist you by offering a FREE Capability Journal that you can download immediately. This journal, created by our experienced disability attorneys and complete with easy-to-follow instructions, is a proven asset to help you gather the evidence needed to win your disability case. Use this journal on a regular basis and bring it with you to your doctor’s visits so your provider can see how your symptoms limit your ability to work.
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Proven-to-Work
Capability Journal NOW
How Tucker Disability Law Can Help
Here’s the reality.
The burden of proof in long-term disability cases is on you. And the truth is, insurance companies don’t want to pay the claims. Furthermore, the doctors they may send you to are on the insurance company’s side, not yours.
That’s why fighting the insurance companies on your own is not easy, if not impossible. In fact, going it alone has an extremely high fail rate, estimated to be as high as 98%!
However, if you’re struggling to make a living and overwhelmed by the anxiety, frustration, and depression associated with your financial burdens as a result of your chronic lung transplant symptoms or while awaiting lung transplantation, Tucker Disability Law is ready to fight for you.
We have a team of highly qualified physicians and healthcare professionals ready to look out for YOUR best interests.
If you’ve been denied or cut off from your long-term disability benefits related to a lung transplant, we go to battle with the big insurance companies on a daily basis, and unlike some of those other firms, we don’t settle for pennies on the dollar.
The only way to fast-track your claim is to have all your ducks in a row.
We offer a three-step success plan:
Most of our cases are contingency, meaning you pay ZERO if we don’t win your case. Unlike the very high failure rate of claimants who go it alone, we have a 98% success rate for our clients.
At the end of the day, Tucker Disability Law doesn’t settle for less. Neither should you. We’ll fight for your benefits so you’ll have the income to help pay for your medical care and regular living expenses. After all, that is why you had disability insurance to begin with – to pay your bills.
Schedule your free consultation now and put our team of disability experts to work for you today.
