After a long process and appeal, I’ve finally been approved for LTD (mental health/depression). As you know, the experience was difficult and has left me in a worse condition than when I initially had to stop working. It has also created a legitimate sense of mistrust toward the case manager. Throughout the process, I often felt that they were trying to put words in my mouth and were focused on finding reasons to close my file.
All of this is to say that the current questions from the case manager are causing me significant stress, and I am unsure how to respond. This is the first time I’ve had to answer these types of questions, and I normally tend to provide too much detail.
How do you usually approach answering these kinds of questions, and to what extent should responses be detailed?
What are the next steps in your treatment plan? Are you still being followed by your therapist?
From a functional standpoint, which tasks or activities are still difficult for you to perform?
How is your sleep?
Have you discussed a return to work with your doctor?
I know these are really basic questions, but I don’t want to inadvertently harm my situation. I don’t have the energy for that, especially after the financial stress I’ve experienced and all the things I need to fix because of it.
This is how I answered similar questions for my physical disabilty.
What are the next steps in your treatment plan? Please see attached treatment plan from my doctor.
Are you still being followed by your therapist? Yes
From a functional standpoint, which tasks or activities are still difficult for you to perform? I find all activities to be difficlt to various degrees.
How is your sleep? Usually poor.
Have you discussed a return to work with your doctor? My doctor and I have discussed that a return to work would make my symptoms far worse at this time.
If you have any other specific questions I will be happy to answer.
Learn to only give short answers that answers only the specific question they are asking. If it’s for over the phone answer directly and let them ask follow up question if need. Don’t let silence bother you, and cause you ramble on. Often my case manager wound ask a yes or no questions…so I would say yes or no. There would be an awkward silence after because they expected me to ramble on like their other claimants do, which they then use against you. I just let my claims manager squirm with the silence. They eventually stopped calling me.
I answer questions like if I were being interrogated by the CIA. Short, sweet, vague and full well knowing anything I write or say will be used against me.
They want to know that you are actively pursuing treatment, which means regular appointments with your therapist and treating physicians. Next step could be an upcoming appointment with one of these providers, a specialist, or change in medication, therapy.
The tasks or activities they are interested in varies depending on your condition, but I would assume things like daily living - ability to cook, drive or take transit, do household chores, self-care (bathe, dress, groom), shop, and how you are limited in those.
What are the next steps in your treatment plan? Are you still being followed by your therapist? I plan to continue taking my medications and will have adjustments made as necessary by my doctor. Yes, I am being followed by a therapist.
From a functional standpoint, which tasks or activities are still difficult for you to perform? Most tasks and activities are harder. I have difficulty initiating tasks and focusing so tasks take much longer to complete. I also have low physical and mental energy so I am unable to do things I could do before.
How is your sleep? My sleep is unrefreshing. I wake up feeling groggy and fatigued.
Have you discussed a return to work with your doctor? My doctor agrees that I need to focus on treatment and that I cannot work yet. So a return to work is not on the table.
I’m in a LTD battle right now and my case manager is brutal. After some reading up on things I figured out it’s perfectly legal for you to request communication by email. That’s all I did. But you have to word it correctly by saying that the phone calls cause you too much stress and cause your mental health to regress also include that you want to be precise in the way you answer their questions which involves some time to think about them. Legally they cannot force you to speak over the phone. You aren’t cutting off communication because that would definitely not fly but email is a form of communication. Worked for me just be stern about it. Don’t take their bullshit! If you do go email just make sure to email them back promptly. Being a case manager they are trained to put you on the spot and put the pressure on so they can twist everything around.
If you are up to watching a video, David Brannen from Resolute Legal did a webinar on how to respond to the written update questionnaires. I think it would be useful for you to watch through the hear about some common mistakes people make like exaggerating or being definitive instead of using the accurate qualifiers. Like saying I can’t walk instead of that I can’t walk very far etc