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3 ways to increase your chance of getting disability coverage for long-COVID

On Behalf of | Sep 8, 2021 | Long Term Disability Claim Denial

Obtaining long-term disability coverage from your employer-provided insurance provider has never been easy. Unfortunately, it is even more difficult to obtain disability benefits for COVID, especially the long-term symptoms of COVID, often called long-COVID.

We have been discussing the challenges for “long-haulers” in obtaining benefits in May, 2021 post, and back in July we looked at the remarkable prevalence of COVID claims being denied. Today, we are looking at what you can do to improve your chances of obtaining disability benefits for COVID-related symptoms.

Increase your chances of obtaining benefits

According to a prominent medical/insurance blog, once someone is disabled for 90 days, they have about a 50 percent chance of being disabled for up to two years. If you are experiencing serious debilitating symptoms for three months, obtaining benefits is extremely important.

Here are three things you can do to increase your odds of avoiding a disability claim denial:

  1. Make all your communications consistent: When you tell your doctor something different than what you tell the insurance company, the insurance company will use that inconsistency to deny your claim.
  2. Make sure your to report your issues with your physician: When seeing your doctor, you must explain the health related problems you are having.  For example, if you become too fatigued to complete your activities of daily living, or certain chores around the house, explain this to your doctor and ask for their advice.
  3. Make sure your lifestyle is consistent with your disability: To use a hypothetical example, if you claim in your disability petition that you cannot use your voice, but you coach football on the weekends, the insurance company is less likely to believe your claim. If your lifestyle is inconsistent with your disability claim, the insurance company can use this fact to deny you the benefits you need.

The fact that COVID is so new and its long-term effects are not well known creates the biggest roadblock against people obtaining their benefits.

If you are suffering from long-term effects of COVID, the best thing you can do is seek legal counsel and help with appealing a denial of long term disability benefits. Obtaining these benefits is too important to cut any corners.

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