Is Social Security Using Dead Doctors to Deny Disability Claims?

If you have medical impairments and you’re applying for disability benefits, it’s not enough just to say you’re too sick or injured to work.

It’s not enough to have your doctor say your health problems make you eligible for benefits, either. To be awarded benefits, you must prove you have a medical problem (or a combination of medical problems) that qualifies for benefits under Social Security’s rules.

At a minimum, you must prove you are incapable of sustaining substantial gainful activity  (SGA) by performing any work in the national economy due to your health problems. For 2024, SGA is defined as grossing more than $1,550 per month.

After you apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments, Social Security may require that you submit to a special medical examination to decide whether you qualify.

For these exams, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has doctors who they pay to evaluate you. And as we have seen too many times, these medical exams are poorly administered.

“As incredible as it may seem, we have seen the Social Security Administration deny disability benefits based on reports from doctors who have passed away,” said disability attorney Dan Rosen at Nash Disability Law. “But when the SSA tries that, the attorneys at Nash catch it and work to beat it.”

“We recently had a case where disability benefits were denied by a Social Security administrative law judge,” Rosen recalls. “The problem? The judge’s decision was based on a report from an SSA consultative exam that our client attended, but somehow the SSA doctor signed the report after the doctor died!”

“We caught it and filed an appeal to the Appeals Council at Social Security. The Appeals Council agreed our client is entitled to a new hearing and a new decision, without any consideration of the dead doctor’s report.”

Unfortunately for disability applicants, this is not a one-time thing. Our Social Security Disability lawyers have seen other reports get consideration after being signed by dead doctors. We have also seen dozens of exam reports by one SSA doctor where he put the same exact boilerplate language into each report, even with the same typographical error!

In another case, a Kansas City, Mo., company has been charged with knowingly submitting false exam reports from SSA doctors regarding the medical condition of Social Security Disability applicants. As a result, thousands of deserving applicants were denied benefits.

These cases illustrate the value of having an experienced disability lawyer by your side who can fight for your rights.

“In the end,” Rosen points out, “the SSA focuses way too much on alleged ‘fraud’ on the part of claimants, with little focus on similar problems within their own ranks. The Social Security Inspector General is supposed to oversee the Social Security Administration to prevent situations like the submission of reports from dead doctors. Recently, after years of accusations of mismanagement, the Social Security Inspector General called it quits. Perhaps, the next IG will get the Social Security house in order. We can only hope.”

The road to winning disability benefits is long and difficult. It is wise to have a skilled disability attorney on your side, one who knows what it takes to get a disability claim approved. A government study reported that if a claimant had a representative such as an attorney, they were nearly three times more likely to be allowed benefits after a disability hearing than someone who had no representation at all.

Contact us at Nash Disability Law for a free evaluation of your case. And if you work with us, we only get paid when you win your case.