How Much Should a Claimant Put on a Function Report? Workshop Recap with Maryjean Ellis

We opened the session with one question in the chat. How many days did DDS give you the last time they sent your client a Function Report?

The answers came in fast. Ten days in New Jersey. Ten in West Virginia. Fifteen in Texas. Fourteen in Illinois, with the client still waiting on the envelope. Ten in Hawaii with a ten day extension. One attendee in Rome, New York wrote that her client received the form on a Friday and it was due the next day. Another in the Bronx wrote that she did not know there was a deadline at all.

That is the shape of the problem. A form arrives with almost no time on it, the claimant may not open the mail for days, and whatever gets written in that window becomes evidence that an ALJ will read back against hearing testimony two years later.

On September 9, 2026, Chronicle hosted Maryjean Ellis for a working session on what to do about it. Maryjean is a co-author of Mental Disorders in Social Security Disability Practice from James Publishing. She was admitted in New Jersey in 1996 and has limited her practice exclusively to Social Security disability and SSI claimants ever since.

Her position on the central question is not the cautious one.

Maryjean said: “the claimant has the burden of proof throughout the case.”

This session was part of Chronicle’s Advancing Disability Law series, which brings practitioners and subject matter experts to the community to work through a specific problem facing SSD firms. The format is short, practical and practitioner led.

Catch the full replay here:

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Speakers:

• Will Yang: Head of Growth, Chronicle. Host and moderator for the Advancing Disability Law series.
• Maryjean Ellis, Esq.: Attorney, Law Office of Maryjean Ellis, LLC. Co-author of Mental Disorders in Social Security Disability Practice (James Publishing), admitted in New Jersey in 1996, and a member of the Sussex County Mental Health Board.

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The Slides

Maryjean has shared her slides from the session. The form-by-form review pass starts around slide 19.

Key Takeaways

1. There are two schools of thought on how much a claimant should put on a Function Report. Maryjean argues for the fuller one, and the burden of proof is why. Early in a case there is no other channel for a claimant’s limitations to reach DDS at all.
2. The answers are evidence, not a checkbox. SSR 16-3p and the POMS both direct SSA to consider the claimant’s own statements about symptoms and limitations.
3. The clock starts the day the form is issued, not the day it arrives. Email it to the client immediately, and give them an internal due date three or four days ahead of the real one so there is time to review.
4. If you need more time, call the adjudicator on the cover letter and propose a specific date on the voicemail, so nobody has to call you back to grant it.
5. Handwriting is evidence. Cross-outs, misspellings and shaky motor skills tell DDS something a clean typed form hides.
6. AI completed forms read as more capable than the claimant is. Maryjean asks clients not to use them, and the telltale signs are bold headings, heavy verbiage and a polished, brief-like format.
7. Review the returned form condition by condition against your own list of diagnoses. The limitations claimants leave out are predictable from the diagnosis.
8. The remarks section is where the explanations go, and almost nobody uses it: why a computer was used, how long the form took, who helped, and why the claimant’s own account understates their condition.
9. On the work forms, unwritten accommodations and impairment related work expenses are left off every time, and both support real arguments.
10. When a client exaggerates and will not budge, that can be a symptom rather than a credibility problem. Explain it to SSA instead of correcting it.

How much should a claimant put on a Function Report?

Maryjean opened by naming the disagreement directly rather than assuming the room shared her view.

The two schools of thought

Maryjean said: “I’ve heard that some advocates feel the claimant should say as little as possible, so they’re not caught later in any kind of inconsistencies.” Her own answer followed immediately: “That’s not the way I approach it.”

The say-less position has a real logic behind it. Anything a claimant writes down can be compared to hearing testimony later, and an inconsistency is hard to walk back in front of a judge.

Why the burden of proof settles it

Maryjean’s answer is that the caution buys protection the claimant cannot afford.

“Early in the case there’s no way to give testimony to Social Security or DDS, so there’s no other way for DDS to know what the claimant is dealing with every day, what their symptoms are, what their limitations are.”

Below the hearing level, the form is the only channel. A claimant who says little has not been careful. They have been silent in the one place the record was open to them.

The forms are evidence, and the rules say so

She grounded the position in authority rather than preference. “The claimant has the burden of proof, and these allegations, the claimant’s statements, are evidence. SSR 16-3p and the POMS both direct Social Security to consider the claimant’s allegations of limitations and symptoms.”

That matters twice. It matters at DDS, where an adjudicator can be persuaded. And it matters at hearing, because ALJs read both the allegations and the inconsistencies, and they compare the forms to testimony.

Mental limitations belong in physical cases

The through line of the whole session was that the mental limitations get left off, including in claims everyone is treating as physical.

“Even in a case you think is primarily physical, looking at those mental limitations in these forms is important.”

The reverse trap is just as common. A claimant filing on a mental health condition mentions a bad knee in conversation and then says that is not why they are filing. Maryjean’s response is the head to toe conversation: SSA cares about each of their problems from head to toe.

What should happen in the first 48 hours after a form is issued?

The workflow Maryjean described is built entirely around buying back the days the mail takes.

Learn about the form before the client does

Her firm does not wait for the envelope. As she put it, before Chronicle they often did not hear about the forms until later in the process. Chronicle is built around daily checks of the e-file, so a newly issued questionnaire surfaces on the day it appears rather than whenever the claimant opens the mail. If you are weighing whether that kind of monitoring belongs in your stack, we compared it to what a case management system does in ERE Monitoring vs Case Management Software.

Email the form the same day

“What we like to do is email the client immediately and say: look at your mail, please open your mail, look for that form.”

Attaching the form itself lets the client start before their copy arrives.

Set an internal due date ahead of the real one

Her firm asks for the completed form three or four days before the DDS deadline. That gap is the entire point. It is the only window in which anyone can catch an answer that will sink the case.

Tell the client, repeatedly, that everything comes back to you

“We reiterate that in writing and verbally to the client many times: unless we tell them otherwise, everything comes back to us, and we submit it to Social Security.”

Clients still send forms straight to SSA, and when they do they usually keep no copy, so the firm waits on the e-file to find out what was submitted. The earlier internal due date is what makes that recoverable rather than fatal. For the wider deadline picture, see SSA Deadlines Disability Attorneys Must Track.

Pull the work forms before SSA asks for them

The work history report and the work activity report can be downloaded by form number and sent to the client early. Maryjean does not file them before SSA asks. She has them loaded and ready, which is what lets her see a post-DLI work problem before it becomes an argument.

How to ask DDS for more time

Her firm does not let a due date lapse. When they cannot make one, they call the adjudicator named on the cover letter and expect voicemail.

The trick is what goes in the message. Propose a specific date, so the adjudicator does not have to call back to approve it. Say that if the date does not work, please call. Leave your name, the claimant’s name, the Social Security number, the claim number and your phone number.

For what happens when a deadline does get away, we covered the recovery path in What Happens When You Miss an SSA Deadline.

Why should claimants not use AI to fill out these forms?

This was the section that produced the most chat traffic, and Maryjean was candid that it is a bias rather than a rule.

The form starts reading like someone else

“These days I started getting back AI-completed forms, or AI-assisted forms, that were extremely comprehensive and sometimes way off the mark for what I know about the client.”

A polished answer is a claim about capacity

Her objection is not aesthetic. It is evidentiary.

“First of all, when I get a single-spaced five-page answer to one question, it looks like the person has a lot more stamina, ability to concentrate, comprehension and fluency than they actually have.”

The document is supposed to show the adjudicator what this person can sustain. A fluent, organized, five page answer says: quite a lot, actually.

It is also sometimes just wrong

“AI sometimes is wrong. It gets it wrong, and the person just thinks, oh yeah, AI’s doing a great job here.”

She added the privacy point as a separate reason worth raising with clients, depending on what tool they are using.

The telltale signs

Asked what tips her off, she was specific. Bold headings. A format that looks like an advocate’s brief. A lot of verbiage and description. A very polished presentation. “AI is going to be very flowery in my experience, flowery, and a very professional-looking presentation.”

Her caveat: a disabled attorney or a disabled physician writing for themselves can look the same way.

What she wants instead

“I want any cognitive issues, any impairments, to shine through in the answers.”

Why does handwriting matter on a Function Report?

This was the most quotable idea in the session, and the one most likely to change what a firm does tomorrow.

Submit it unvarnished

“So if I get something back with coffee rings and stains and cross-outs and rips in it, within reason, I’m going to submit that, because that shows how the person is able to deal with paperwork.”

Then the line that landed: “Cross-outs, misspellings, bad syntax, bad grammar. Those are all evidence in your case.”

Do not clean up the gaps

A claimant who cannot remember their own address or Social Security number has told SSA something real. Maryjean does not go back in and fix it.

“I want Social Security to see this person unvarnished.”

Poor fine motor skills show up in handwriting too, and that is the point.

When the client offers to have someone else write it

Clients regularly offer to hand the form to a spouse because their handwriting is bad. Her answer: “it would be helpful if Social Security sees your bad handwriting.” The exception is a genuine hand impairment or pain that makes writing itself the barrier.

If they type, explain why in the remarks

Typing is fine. Unexplained typing is not. If a client answers one question with a five page single spaced attachment, she wants the remarks section to say it took twelve days, or that OCD kept them going back to it.

“I want to see some kind of explanation of why it looks so good.”

How do you review a completed form before it goes back?

Maryjean’s review is not a proofread. It is a structured pass with four separate lenses.

Check it against your own list of impairments

She works from the new client questionnaire or the impairment list in her case management software, and confirms that every impairment has corresponding limitations somewhere in the answers.

Check it against what the client told you

“Many times they’re leaving some of those details out entirely, and they’re really important.”

Toileting, incontinence, not being able to shower. The things people say out loud in a meeting and then leave off a form.

Check what the diagnosis predicts

This is the highest leverage of the four. Clients do not know which limitations follow from their own conditions, so the advocate has to supply the prediction.

• Depression and the personal care question. A client says they can shower, and Maryjean asks whether they shower on a day they spend in bed. They do not. “Okay, so we have to add that.”
• Depression and physical complaints. Fatigue and body pain that the client attributes to nothing, because their back and knees are fine.
• Bipolar disorder and the money question. Running up credit cards or shopping online is a money management limitation, and nobody writes it there.
• Anxiety, PTSD and OCD. Specific fears, often unusual ones, that produce severe symptoms and never make it onto the page.
• Personality disorders. Whether they get along with others, and whether they have ever been disciplined at work.
• A lap band and digestive issues, as her example of a limitation that follows from a procedure the client never connected to the form.

Check for what embarrassment is hiding

“Now’s not the time to let embarrassment get in the way, is what your client needs to know.”

She flagged a pattern worth knowing: men, and particularly clients with a military background, tend not to report embarrassing limitations. She was explicit that it is a generalization, and that it is often true.

The daily activities questions deserve their own pass

The “what do you do all day” answer often describes a busier day than the advocate’s.

The correction is not to shrink the list. It is to add the constraints: only one task a day, and often not finished. Laundry sitting in the washer all week. A doctor’s appointment that costs the rest of the day in bed. Post-exertional fatigue and malaise. Tasks abandoned halfway because of ADHD or anxiety.

Shopping and driving carry the most detail for mental health claims. Overwhelm in a grocery store, a hundred kinds of cereal, bright lights, crowds. Clients who shop at 6am or 11pm specifically to avoid people they know. Not remembering what to buy even with a list. Social anxiety at the cashier. In the car: how long they can sit, panic attacks, toll roads and highways, needing someone to come along, getting lost in a neighborhood they have known for years.

Good days and bad days, not worst days

Maryjean was firm that coaching a client to describe only their worst day backfires, because the medical records will not support it.

“Most conditions, mental health conditions particularly, are waxing and waning, exacerbating, in quiescence some days.”

Writing that variation onto the form is what defuses the cherry-pick later. As she put it, an ALJ will hold up a single normal mental status exam and call the function report inconsistent, and the answer to that is a form that already said here is a good day and here is a bad day.

Two answers to be careful with

• Managing money. Clients report trouble managing money when what they mean is that they have no money to manage. An unnecessary rep payee is a real hurdle, especially for an isolated client or one with unsupportive relatives.
• Recovery group meetings. Worth including, and worth framing. A supportive, structured room is not a work environment with supervision and criticism in it.

When the client has no insight

For claimants with little insight into their own condition, which she noted is clinically called anosognosia and which she describes to judges as poor insight, the form will come back saying everything is fine and will contradict the medical records.

Her approach is to let it, and then supply the counterweight: a lay witness statement from a family member or friend, or the third party function report. If there is nobody available, the advocate explains it, in the remarks, in a pre-hearing brief, or in a letter to DDS.

What belongs in the remarks section?

Maryjean called the remarks section the most underused space on the form. Four things belong there and almost never appear.

1. Why a computer was used, if the answers are typed.
2. Why the form looks so good. Two weeks of full time work, a hundred returns to the page, or help from a family member.
3. What the process cost. Long breaks, panic attacks, being overwhelmed, an inability to concentrate.
4. A note on insight, signed by the advocate, pointing to the lay witness statement or third party report.

Two mechanical rules came with it. If a bad form already went in, before you were retained or because the client mailed it themselves, send a supplemental form, and send it early rather than saving it for the hearing. And on any form where you make revisions, add your name to the signature area so it is clear the claimant and the office both worked on it.

What matters most on the work history and work activity reports?

Maryjean skipped the mechanics of describing job duties, which other CLEs cover, and went straight to the parts that carry argument.

The one work history question

The question she cares about is how the claimant’s medical conditions affect their ability to do the job. The answer box is tiny and the remarks section is not, so the real answer goes in remarks.

Two rules for it. Do not let the answer be only physical, because concentration, task completion and social interaction problems show up in pain and panic and depression too. And tailor the answer to each job separately where the duties genuinely differ.

The accommodations nobody writes down

Clients leave help off the form because they are protecting someone. A coworker who covered for them. A supervisor who gave them slack. Accommodations that were real but never formal.

“People will say to me, yeah, there was nothing formal, so I left it blank.”

Her fix is reassurance about SSA’s privacy rules: the supervisor is not going to find out, the company is not going to find out, and nobody is going to be sued. The same applies to a family business that paid a claimant who barely showed up, which supports a subsidized work argument.

The IRWE question everyone skips

“People always leave impairment-related work expenses off. Every single time.”

They are predictable. Medication co-pays. Specialist co-pays, unless the client is on Medicaid. Braces, equipment, specialty hose for vein problems.

Two things make them persuasive. Give the costs by month, even though SSA does not ask that way. And attach documentation: pharmacies will print what a person paid over years, and physicians’ offices will itemize co-pays.

This matters most when the claimant was over SGA after the alleged onset date, or close to it, because a judge may suspect the work was held down artificially.

Net earnings on self-employment

For a self-employment work activity report, the number SSA wants is net earnings, after the normal Schedule C business expenses. Claimants frequently do not realize a zero or a loss is the meaningful figure.

When exaggeration is not fraud

Her closing idea was the most nuanced of the session.

“Sometimes exaggeration is not fraud, or objectionable, because it’s the claimant’s truthful point of view on their illness.”

Somatic symptom disorders and certain personality disorders produce answers that read as exaggeration and are, to the claimant, accurate. Pain that is never a 1 out of 10 and is always a 12.

Her sequence is to probe gently, do a little reality testing, and see if the client budges. If they do not, she lets the form go as written and explains it separately to SSA, ideally anchored to a diagnosis that accounts for it. She noted she cringes harder at minimization, because that is the version that quietly damages the case.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can we provide an updated ADL form at the hearing level?

It cannot hurt if the situation warrants it, particularly if the earlier form was poorly completed or something has changed significantly. Maryjean noted you can accomplish much the same thing with a lay witness letter, or by having the claimant write their own statement before the hearing, which helps when the medical history is complicated.

What are the telltale signs a claimant used AI on a form?

Bold headings, a format that reads like an advocate’s brief, heavy verbiage and a very polished presentation. Maryjean’s caveat is that a disabled attorney or physician writing for themselves can produce something similar.

Can the ability to use AI count as a transferable skill?

Technically no, not unless the person actually used it on the job in past relevant work. Maryjean added that she would still be cautious, because using AI to navigate a claim demonstrates a current cognitive ability.

Do DDS adjudicators actually read these forms?

Maryjean’s answer: “My feeling is, yes, they do. And if not, they should.” Her point was that an adjudicator failing to follow the SSRs and regulations does not make the failure correct, and does not change what the advocate should submit.

What is the success rate on emailing forms for clients to print, handwrite and scan back?

It depends heavily on the client’s capabilities and cooperation, and Maryjean did not put a number on it. Some of her clients specifically ask for fillable forms. Her firm gives clients a lot of room when impairments are the reason for the delay, and, in her words, they “just have to be pleasant nags.”

Are you relying on claimants to mail the original form back to you?

No. Snail mail takes too long. Clients drop forms off in person, and a great deal gets done over the phone, including going through updates after the form comes back. Where clients email, her firm cautions them to block out the full Social Security number unless they are using something more secure. Everything gets submitted through ERE, and faxed with a barcode where SSA asks for that.

Our staff completes forms for clients because of language barriers or medical limitations. Is that a problem?

Explain it in the remarks section: what assistance was needed and what the office provided. Separately, when the office handwrites updates on a returned form, Maryjean signs the signature area in a way that makes clear both the claimant and the office worked on it.

One attendee works with Deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind and Deaf-plus clients who often experience language deprivation, and translates forms into ASL before filling in answers. Is that an issue?

Maryjean was straightforward that she had not encountered this in her own practice and would want to learn more about the process before advising on it. Her general principle applies: meet claimants where they are and do your best with what they need in order to complete the task.

Should we send clients a how-to guide with examples of specific answers?

Yes. An attendee’s example was expanding “I walk to the store” into a walk of three blocks with a stop at a bench halfway because of breathlessness. Maryjean’s response was that a standard package or memo with examples is something you cannot go wrong with.

How do you handle a claimant who refuses to complete the forms?

Maryjean talks it through and offers help, including asking whether a family member can assist an overwhelmed client. Her line for a client who insists the firm should simply fill it out is that the office has no way of knowing what the client’s day is like. If the refusal is anger rather than difficulty, she reconsiders the representation, because “unwillingness in one area usually translates to unwillingness and uncooperation in other areas.”

What do you do when a client minimizes their limitations?

She tries to get them to be realistic, often by naming the pattern out loud, as with a veteran who is powering through. It does not always work. Her view is that minimization is the more damaging version of an inaccurate form.

Watch the Full Replay

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About This Series

Advancing Disability Law is Chronicle’s series on what is actually changing in disability practice: SSA processes, tools, and the operational decisions firms are making right now. Sessions are short, practical and led by practitioners.

Chronicle also runs Chronicle Unlocked, hands-on product training for Chronicle users, and Disability Peers in Practice, a monthly roundtable where practitioners compare how they run their firms.

Every session is free and listed on the Chronicle events calendar. Recordings and written recaps are published on the Chronicle blog.

If daily visibility into what SSA has issued on your cases would change how your firm handles form deadlines, you can book a demo or read more about ERE monitoring software for disability firms.

Follow Chronicle on LinkedIn for session announcements and recaps.

Questions: support@chroniclelegal.com | 847-665-9612

Full Session Transcript

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

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Welcome and housekeeping

Will Yang: Welcome, everybody. Before we get started with today’s workshop, a few housekeeping items. If you haven’t already shared in the chat, we’d love to hear from you, your name, your state, and how many days DDS gave you the last time they sent your client a Function Report.

Everything is recorded, so if you miss anything you want to review later, we’ll have it up for you with takeaways shortly after this presentation. Keep your eyes peeled in your email for that. Questions are welcome throughout. Please leave them in the Zoom chat with two hashtags in front of your question, it makes them easier for us to track, since as you can see there are plenty of conversations going on in there already.

If this is your first time here, welcome, and this is not a one-off event. Chronicle runs free virtual sessions for disability practitioners all year round. We have a few every single month, in a couple of different formats. This is part of Advancing Disability Law, where we talk about what’s actually changing in the practice, SSA processes, tools, operational changes. We also run Chronicle Unlocked, which digs into hands-on product training for Chronicle users; even if you’re just Chronicle-curious, you’re welcome to check us out there. Next week we have two sessions: one introducing our new Dispatch feature, and Permissions 201, which is a good refresher if you’re already a user. And we run Disability Peers in Practice, which is essentially a mastermind group where you can connect with other practitioners, those water cooler conversations you don’t otherwise get in between conferences. You can find all of it at chroniclelegal.com/events, or search for us on YouTube.

Introducing Maryjean Ellis

Will Yang: With that, welcome everybody to today’s session: Winning Mental Health (and Other) SSD/SSI Claims: Function, 3rd Party Function, and Work History Reports Done Right, with Maryjean Ellis, who we’re really excited to have on today.

To tell you a little more about Maryjean: she’s a co-author of Mental Disorders in Social Security Disability Practice. She was admitted in New Jersey in 1996 and has focused solely on Social Security disability in that time. She serves on the Sussex County Mental Health Board, and she’s a regular speaker at NOSSCR conferences, where she’ll be speaking again next month. This session came out of our Jim Brown workshop. Jim said you have to have Maryjean on to talk about how she handles these cases, so we’re thrilled to have her.

Here’s what we’re going to leave today with: a defensible answer to how much should go on the form; the first 48 hours workflow, including how to ask DDS for more time; a condition-by-condition review pass for reading a completed form before it goes back; the four things that belong in the remarks section and almost never appear there; and what to do about the work form, the one work history question that matters most, and the IRWE question everyone skips. Maryjean, feel free to take it away.

The four forms

Maryjean Ellis: Thanks so much, Will, and welcome, everybody. I hope I’ll provide at least a couple of helpful hints you didn’t have before or hadn’t thought of. I usually consider a CLE or a presentation a success for me if I get just a couple of nuggets that help me in my practice. That’s what I’m hoping for you.

The four forms we’re talking about today are the adult function report and the third-party function report, those are two really key reports, as well as the work history report and the work activity report, which people don’t always think of as having to deal with limitations in ADLs. But particularly with the recent update to the work history report, Social Security does ask about why you can’t do the job anymore, and your past relevant work. That’s very helpful to the claim.

Why these forms decide cases

Maryjean Ellis: Why do these forms help Social Security and DDS decide cases? We find that DDS adjudicators can be persuaded by reviewing client forms. They’re not just a checkbox for Social Security and DDS. They are considered when an adjudicator is looking at the claim.

Another reason they’re crucial for the advocate to look at carefully before submitting on behalf of a claimant is that ALJs also look at them at hearing, if you have to go all the way to an ALJ. ALJs look at both the allegations and the positive evidence of the allegations, as well as any inconsistencies in the forms, and they compare the forms to testimony. And particularly, this is why I’m giving this presentation, the mental limitations. Even in a case you think is primarily physical, looking at those mental limitations in these forms is important.

As some of you have indicated in the chat, DDS tends to provide very tight deadlines. I was actually surprised to see some of the long lead times that some people are getting. However, many times, even if the claimant receives the form with a lot of lead time, they don’t open their mail, they don’t notice what they received, they don’t know the importance of addressing these forms. Before Chronicle, anyway, we often didn’t hear about the forms until later in the process.

The way I understand the process, DDS issues the letter, and then it gets mailed out at some point, and of course it sits in the mail, and the claimant receives it at some point, and some of our claimants don’t open their mail right away. So you hear days into the process that there’s this form that they have so many days to complete. We also get a copy in the mail. Sometimes the claimant doesn’t know about the deadline until they’re very close to it, and a lot of claimants, because of their impairments, take time to complete the form. So sometimes you’re behind the eight ball immediately.

Two schools of thought

Maryjean Ellis: There are two schools of thought about how claimants are to complete the forms. I’ve heard that some advocates feel the claimant should say as little as possible, so they’re not caught later in any kind of inconsistencies. That’s not the way I approach it.

My thinking is that the claimant has the burden of proof throughout the case. Early in the case there’s no way to give testimony to Social Security or DDS, so there’s no other way for DDS to know what the claimant is dealing with every day, what their symptoms are, what their limitations are. So my approach is to have the claimant fill out the form as completely as possible and explain all of their limitations to Social Security, because that’s evidence in the case.

The claimant has the burden of proof, and these allegations, the claimant’s statements, are evidence. SSR 16-3p and the POMS both direct Social Security to consider the claimant’s allegations of limitations and symptoms.

The first 48 hours after a form is issued

Maryjean Ellis: I’m a big fan of Chronicle. What Chronicle does is they let the advocate know immediately when DDS issues those forms, which is wonderful, because otherwise there’s a delay if you wait until you get it in the mail. So if you do happen to have Chronicle, Chronicle will let you know immediately that the form is issued, before the claimant ever receives the form in the mail.

What we like to do is email the client immediately and say: look at your mail, please open your mail, look for that form. Those ADL forms are usually the first ones that arrive. Please complete them, we need them. We usually ask for something like three or four days ahead of the DDS deadline, so that we have an opportunity to look at everything, make sure it’s complete, make sure there are no unfortunate answers that are going to sink the case and that are inaccurate.

Of course, I would never encourage or allow the claimant, to the best of my ability and to the best of the claimant’s ability, to exaggerate or minimize anything. We’re not going to allow anything to reach Social Security that’s not factual, with some exceptions I’ll talk about that are impairment-related.

So we email the forms to the client right away so they can start working on them before they even get the form in the mail. Another strategy we’ve used, particularly with the work forms like the work activity report and the work history form, is that we can get them online. Google the form number, print them, and email those to the client before Social Security even asks for them. That’s particularly important when there’s post-DLI work and you want to see what’s going on before Social Security even asks. We don’t send the work history report and the work activity report to Social Security before they ask for it, but we have them loaded and ready to go in a lot of cases before they ask. That’s very helpful in advocating the case and figuring out what the strategy is as you go along.

Make sure the client knows that all forms are coming back to your office. We reiterate that in writing and verbally to the client many times: unless we tell them otherwise, everything comes back to us, and we submit it to Social Security. A lot of clients forget that and send it in anyway, which poses some other issues. Most of the time they don’t save a copy, and you’re waiting until you have access to the e-file to see what they submitted. But all is not lost if that happens. You’re giving them an earlier due date so you have time to look at it, get back to them, and see if any answers need to be tweaked or changed.

Asking DDS for more time

Maryjean Ellis: If the client needs more time, or you need more time before the due date, we generally do not let a due date lapse. We make every effort to get the form to DDS before the due date or on the due date.

So if we can’t meet the due date, we call DDS. Call the adjudicator listed on the cover letter. Often we get voicemail. What we do is propose a date, so that they don’t have to call back. Make it easy for them. Propose a date and say: if this date doesn’t work for you, please call us back. Leave your name, the claimant’s name, Social Security number, the claim number if you have it, and your phone number.

What to tell the client before they start

Maryjean Ellis: Before they start completing the form, we tell the client to please answer every question in detail, and to consider all of their limitations, even those they don’t consider to be their so-called main problems.

That especially needs to be emphasized to people who think they only have physical issues and physical impairments. You want them to think about any mental impairments. And conversely, if it’s mainly a mental health case, people will say to me, I can’t work because of a mental health condition, and you find out they have a bad knee, and they’ll say, well, that’s not why I’m filing. It’s the head-to-toe conversation you then have with them: Social Security cares about each of their problems from head to toe.

Why claimants should not use AI

Maryjean Ellis: These days I started getting back AI-completed forms, or AI-assisted forms, that were extremely comprehensive and sometimes way off the mark for what I know about the client. So I’ve been telling clients ahead of time: please don’t use AI to complete your forms.

First of all, when I get a single-spaced five-page answer to one question, it looks like the person has a lot more stamina, ability to concentrate, comprehension and fluency than they actually have. That’s a misapprehension we don’t want Social Security to have. And AI sometimes is wrong. It gets it wrong, and the person just thinks, oh yeah, AI’s doing a great job here. There are also privacy concerns, which are a good thing to make the client aware of, depending on what AI mechanism they’re using. That’s why I don’t like clients to use AI.

Handwriting is evidence

Maryjean Ellis: I like to have clients handwrite the answers to the questions on the forms, if possible. So if I get something back with coffee rings and stains and cross-outs and rips in it, within reason, I’m going to submit that, because that shows how the person is able to deal with paperwork. Cross-outs, misspellings, bad syntax, bad grammar. Those are all evidence in your case.

People who don’t remember the answer and say so, or don’t remember their address and Social Security number, I wouldn’t correct that and go back in there. I want Social Security to see this person unvarnished. Poor fine motor skills show up, and that’s important.

A lot of times my clients will say, I’m going to have my husband write this because I have terrible handwriting. And we impress upon them: it would be helpful if Social Security sees your bad handwriting. Unless it’s painful for you and you really can’t do it because of a hand impairment or some other issue.

If you need to type your answers on a computer, that’s okay, but I would like to see that explained in the remarks, why you’re using a computer. Again, if I have a client who is going to answer question 5, for example, in a five-page single-spaced attachment, I would want to say in the remarks: Social Security, it took me 12 days to do this, or my OCD requires me to keep going and going and going. I want to see some kind of explanation of why it looks so good.

Reviewing the returned form, condition by condition

Maryjean Ellis: So you get the completed form back. Here are some of the things I look for when I’m reviewing it.

I look at a listing of impairments, either from my new client questionnaire, or the listing we make in our case management software of all the impairments we know about. And we make sure that for every impairment, any corresponding limitations are included in the questions about limitations.

I also think back about conversations with the client. What were they complaining about that they couldn’t do? Many times they’re leaving some of those details out entirely, and they’re really important. For example, and I’ll talk about this more, the embarrassment factor. Toileting issues, incontinence, inability to shower every day for various reasons. There are things people leave out because they’re embarrassed. They don’t want to admit to it. Now’s not the time to let embarrassment get in the way, is what your client needs to know.

Also, look at what the diagnosis predicts. Many clients will not even think of limitations that have to do with certain of their diagnoses. If you know what their diagnoses are, hopefully they’ll tell you before you have a chance to look at all the medical records, you can predict. If they had a lap band, maybe they have digestive issues they forgot to include.

Other examples, particularly mental health related. Depression: people see that personal care question and say, fine, I can shower, I can step over the lip of the tub, I can turn on the water. But I also know they spend days in bed. So, do you shower on a day when you’re in bed all day? Oh, no, I don’t. Okay, so we have to add that.

Some personality disorders: can they get along with other people? Have they ever been disciplined? That’s important to include. And the ability to interact with supervisors, coworkers, or the public, if you get to a judge, that’s what the judge will look at.

Anxiety, PTSD, or OCD: what specific fears do they have? A lot of times there are very unusual fears that cause very severe symptoms, and they don’t put them down, so that would be important to include.

The ability to handle money is important. For example, people with bipolar disorder who run up credit cards may not think to put that down under handling money, spending money foolishly, doing a lot of online shopping.

Appetite changes go under the eating question. And toileting: can you use the toilet? Most people say, yeah, no problem. But if they have incontinence, if they need to be in the bathroom a hundred times during the morning, I’m exaggerating, of course, if they need extra time to clean themselves up, or bring a change of clothes wherever they go, that goes in the toilet line in the self-care section.

Depression also causes fatigue and body pain in a lot of people. So the client may think, there’s nothing wrong with my back, there’s nothing wrong with my knees. But because of the depression, I can’t get myself to mow the lawn, I can’t get myself to do laundry, I hurt all over, I need to stay in bed, I’m exhausted. Those details need to go in.

I talked about embarrassment. That’s a big one, particularly with certain personality types. I find men tend not to want to report embarrassing limitations. Former military, they have a “I need to suck it up and get things done” attitude. Those are people I watch out for. It is a generalization, but it can be true.

And approaching the question the right way: it’s not only can you physically get your clothes on, but do you have the motivation to get fresh clothes on every day? Some people don’t remember how they used to cook, because it’s been so long and there’s been a slow, steady decline in their abilities. So in cases where people say, no, it’s about the same with my cooking, did you ever cook full meals? Did you ever do more than microwave? And then you learn that yes, they used to make full meals for the family every night, and slowly and gradually they don’t do that anymore.

”What do you do all day,” shopping, and driving

Maryjean Ellis: The “what do you do all day” question, sometimes the answers bowl me over when I first get the completed questionnaire, because their day sounds busier than my typical day. But they don’t think about the fact that they don’t do all those tasks in the same day. A lot of people can only do one task a day, and they can’t even finish one task. Laundry might take the whole week. It might sit in the washer for a long time, because of post-exertional fatigue, post-exertional malaise, for example. Those are things that affect people’s ability to do more than one or two things a day.

Sometimes people say to me, well, I go to the doctor, and that’s a full day for me, I’m in bed the rest of the day. So talking about how they’re limited in that question would be helpful: that they can only do one task a day, or one errand a day. That they can do things, but they need to take many breaks. That they need help doing a lot of tasks. Some tasks never get finished. People with ADHD or anxiety might forget what they’re doing, get sidetracked, and things sit undone or half done.

Shopping and driving have a lot of components that allow people to explain their symptoms and limitations more clearly, particularly with mental health problems. A lot of clients say they’re very overwhelmed when they go into a grocery store. What is there, a hundred different kinds of cereal in different sized boxes? That’s a lot of stimulation for people. Bright lights. Crowds, particularly. A lot of my clients with mental health disorders go very early in the morning or very late in the evening so they’re avoiding people and crowds and people they know. They don’t like to wait in lines, and of course there are people who can’t stand long enough to wait in lines, which is a physical issue. People don’t remember what to buy, even with a list. And talking to the store staff: advocates know this, social anxiety. A lot of my clients have social anxiety, so interacting with the cashier and other people in the store is a problem.

Driving. Time limits, how long can they sit in the car? Do they get panic attacks in the car? Do they have a lot of anxiety on toll roads, on highways? Do they need someone to go with them to doctors, to the store? A lot of my clients do. They have a lot of difficulty getting out of the house by themselves, or getting out of the house for more than a few minutes or a very short distance. And there are people with cognitive issues who get lost even going short distances in neighborhoods they used to know very well.

Good days and bad days

Maryjean Ellis: Following instructions and finishing tasks, many people say, no problem. I like to probe a little when I get the completed questionnaire back and they’re saying no trouble. Well, maybe you have no trouble on a good day. Maybe you have no trouble when you’re not in pain, when you’re not having an anxiety attack. But when you’re symptomatic, do you have trouble following instructions and finishing tasks? I would say that in the answer.

I don’t like to tell people to only tell Social Security what it’s like on your worst day, because the medical records will usually not support that and it’ll be inconsistent. Most conditions, mental health conditions particularly, are waxing and waning, exacerbating, in quiescence some days. So: some days I can follow instructions and finish tasks, and other days I just can’t do it. Those kinds of answers are important, because they’ll be consistent with varying mental status reports in the psychiatric records.

That’s something ALJs love to cherry-pick, especially the not-so-great ALJs. They’ll say, well, on this day your mental status report was completely normal, and that’s not consistent with the function report. But you can explain that if the client tells Social Security on the function report: hey, it varies. Here’s what a good day looks like, here’s what a bad day looks like.

Places you go regularly: make sure you talk about recovery group meetings. That’s good in a lot of different ways. With substance use disorders, you want Social Security seeing that they’re making efforts to get better and to stay in recovery. But also, yes, your client goes to a social gathering, so to speak, a recovery group meeting, but it’s a very supportive environment, a structured environment. It’s different from a work environment where you’re subject to criticism and supervision. You can make that distinction: social skills in one setting are different from another setting.

As far as provider appointments, for some of my clients it seems like going to doctors, going to testing, going to different specialists is a full-time job. That’s something you want Social Security to see a picture of, that they’re busy all the time going to doctor’s appointments. How can they sustain a regular schedule at work?

Assistive devices: make sure you ask the clients, because a lot of times they’ll leave things off. They’ll usually say glasses, and that’s it. But if they have bars in their bathroom, if they have extra railing, of course, for physical impairments. I meet clients on Zoom a lot, particularly when we’re getting ready for a Teams hearing, because I want to see how they appear on screen. And I see a man in his 20s with a teddy bear. I ask, do you always carry the teddy bear? A lot of times they’ll say yes, I need my teddy bear here, I need my support animal. Those are important issues to include. Technically a teddy bear probably isn’t an assistive device, but it’s a detail I think Social Security needs to hear about. And of course canes, walkers, braces, think about what you know about the client to make sure you capture all of those things.

Managing money and the rep payee risk

Maryjean Ellis: We’re pretty careful about the difficulty-managing-money answer, because many of our clients will answer that question on a function report and say they have trouble managing money. And we come to find out, upon questioning them, they say, well, I don’t have any money. I used to have money, I used to be able to manage it, now I have no money.

If it’s not an issue, we don’t want Social Security to insist on a rep payee, particularly when we have an isolated client, or a client with abusive or unsupportive relatives in their life. They might not have anybody to manage their money, and if it’s not necessary, it’s not good to put that hurdle in there.

Poor insight and lay witness statements

Maryjean Ellis: If a client has no insight, and it’s part of the mental health condition, it’s technically called anosognosia. Most judges, in my experience, don’t know what that means, so I usually say “poor insight.”

Certainly with schizophrenia, or depression with psychotic features, claimants tend to have very little insight into their symptoms, their limitations, and their need for medication and treatment. Those claims have their hurdles that the advocate has to negotiate. What I like to do is let them complete the questionnaire and say that they’re fine, that’s going to be very inconsistent with their medical records, particularly if they have a lot of hospitalizations. And I like to attach, or submit at the same time, a lay witness statement from a family member or friend that gives a realistic picture of what the person is dealing with. The third-party function report is important for the same reason.

If you don’t have anybody like that in their life who’s willing and able to explain accurately what the person is dealing with, you can explain it yourself, in the remarks, in a pre-hearing brief, or in a letter to DDS or Social Security, explaining why the function report is so inconsistent with your understanding of reality and with the medical records.

The remarks section

Maryjean Ellis: I talked a little already about the remarks section. Why a computer was used. Why it looks so wonderful, it’s single-spaced and very detailed because the person took two weeks full-time to do it, or had to come back to it a hundred times, or needed help and got help doing it from a family member. If it took a long time, if there were a lot of breaks, why? The person got panic attacks, was very overwhelmed, couldn’t concentrate.

And of course you can say something about a lack of insight. You can sign it as the advocate: in our understanding, claimant has very poor insight, please see lay witness statement or third-party function report.

If a bad form went in, for whatever reason, before you were retained, or because the claimant forgot to send it to you, you can send in a supplemental form. And I would do it early. I wouldn’t wait until right before the hearing, if you have to go to a hearing. But always add your name to the signature area, that you helped the client fill it out. On any of these forms where you make any revisions, I would add your name to the form.

Work history and work activity reports

Will Yang: Maryjean, as we enter this last section, if you want to take your time through it, we have a good set of questions. If folks have any questions and you have to leave us at the top of the hour, just drop them in the Zoom chat and we’ll make sure we get through all of them in the recording. Does that sound good?

Maryjean Ellis: Sure, that sounds great, thank you.

So, work forms. There are lots of CLEs and workshops on how to fill out the work portion, the physical and mental requirements of the job. I’m just going to focus on the limitations and how they affect or prevent a person from doing their past relevant work.

The question I’m going to focus on in the work history report is: how would your medical conditions affect your ability to do this job? You get a very tiny space to answer that question in, but there is a remarks section, so you can elaborate there.

Make sure they’re not only talking about physical issues. Most people, even if it’s mainly a physical impairment case, have concentration issues, task completion issues, social interaction issues, when they’re in pain, when they’re symptomatic, with panic, with anxiety, with depression. Make sure the claimant mentions those.

I would also tailor that answer to each job separately, if appropriate. If there’s a significant change in the duties, talk about how those duties would be impacted by the particular impairments the person has.

Unwritten accommodations and subsidized work

Maryjean Ellis: Jumping to the work incentive section in the work activity report. A lot of people are very cognizant of getting their employer in trouble, or a coworker in trouble, because the coworker helped the person do aspects of their job and the supervisor never knew about it. Or accommodations were provided by the employer, but they weren’t in writing, or they weren’t formal. People will say to me, yeah, there was nothing formal, so I left it blank.

It’s important to include those, any kind of help the person got. In a lot of cases a sympathetic supervisor or coworker will cover for that employee for a significant amount of time and help them a lot, and it’s not of record anywhere. Of course, if there is something of record, you’re going to include that.

What I do is assure my client that Social Security’s privacy rules are very strict. The supervisor is not going to find out what they put down. Any coworkers or the company are not going to find out. Social Security needs to know, it’s very helpful for them to know.

So the supports are invisible on paper. People need to be assured that nobody’s going to be sued and nobody’s going to get in trouble if the claimant discloses the extra help they got, or that they were given a lot of slack.

Another example, and this would be in a self-employment work activity report: sometimes a family member who owns the company pays the claimant, and the claimant doesn’t even show up, or does very, very little. And they don’t want their family member or friend to get in any kind of trouble. It’s very helpful if Social Security knows, and of course it supports a subsidized work argument.

Impairment-related work expenses

Maryjean Ellis: People always leave impairment-related work expenses off. Every single time. And you can guess that there are going to be medication co-pays, and you know the person is going to a hundred different specialists, I’m exaggerating, so there are going to be specialist co-pays, unless they’re on Medicaid. There are going to be things like braces and equipment that cost money, specialty hose for problems with veins.

It’s very helpful if they can provide those costs by month, even though Social Security doesn’t exactly ask for that. If you can attach itemized statements from the pharmacy, you can ask for a printout of what the person paid over years from most pharmacies, and itemized statements from physicians’ offices with what their co-pays were, those are super helpful.

You need to do that if the person was over SGA nominally after the alleged onset date, or even if they were close to SGA, because some judges will say, well, you’re awfully close to SGA, maybe you were artificially working less than you could have worked to get around the SGA rules. So if you do provide significant impairment-related work expenses, that really helps.

For the self-employment work activity report, make sure they’re reporting net earnings, earnings before taxes but after the normal business expenses that go on Schedule C of the tax return. If they have a tax return with a Schedule C, if they’re that organized, that would be helpful to look at, if they don’t know what their net earnings are. A lot of times there’s a zero, or there’s a loss in net earnings, and people don’t really get that that’s the important number.

When exaggeration is not fraud

Maryjean Ellis: Sometimes exaggeration is not fraud, or objectionable, because it’s the claimant’s truthful point of view on their illness. Somatic symptom disorders, certain personality disorders, you’ll see this as you interact with some of your clients. They exaggerate. Their pain is never 1 out of 10, their pain is always a 12 or a 15. That’s just the way they see it. And they do nothing all day.

I would try to probe the client, maybe to do a little reality testing, and see if they budge. If they don’t budge, I would let the function report go like it is, with the exaggeration. I cringe even more when there’s minimization of symptoms and limitations, because that doesn’t look good for your case. But if the person doesn’t budge, and that’s their point of view, their life and their understanding of their life, you need to point that out in a different way to Social Security. If you’re at the hearing level, that’s with a pre-hearing brief. And hopefully you have a diagnosis of one of these disorders that explains why the person exaggerates.

We talked about waxing and waning symptoms, and why function reports can be different from testimony eventually, or different from each other over time if there’s more than one. Changes in treatment, changes in medication, worsening of the condition, or in some cases the condition gets a little better over time. And new supports the person didn’t have before. You want to be able to explain any changes like that.

What to take away

Maryjean Ellis: To sum up. The ADL forms and the work history reports are evidence, the rules and regulations say that, and Social Security needs to take those allegations and statements into account.

Hit the ground running with the forms. Have the claimant start on them right away. Have them handwrite the forms if they can. Don’t use AI, have the client do them using their own brains. Use the remarks section liberally. And look at all the diagnoses. That’s probably my biggest thing: I want to make sure that all the diagnoses are taken into account.

Q&A

Will Yang: With that, we’re going to start the Q&A. Can we, or should we, provide an updated ADL form at the hearing level?

Maryjean Ellis: I think it couldn’t hurt if it warrants it. Certainly if it was poorly completed in your opinion previously, or if something’s changed significantly, yes. But you could also accomplish about the same thing with a lay witness letter, we ask for those from friends or family. And a lot of times, if a person’s story is complicated, if they have a lot of symptoms and a complicated medical history, it’s very helpful for the claimant to also write a statement to put in before the hearing. So yes, I think those ideas are good ones.

Will Yang: What type of AI are you seeing your clients using?

Maryjean Ellis: I’m not well-versed on AI, I need to admit. I don’t really know what they use. I’m guessing that most people use ChatGPT, but I don’t know for sure.

Will Yang: Reframing the question, what are your telltale signs that someone has used AI in their response, compared to what you’re used to seeing?

Maryjean Ellis: When I see headings that are in bold and look like an advocate’s brief in format. When there’s a lot of verbiage, a lot of description. When it’s very polished. Although sometimes, if you have a claimant who’s a disabled attorney or a disabled physician, it might be a little hard to tell. But AI is going to be very flowery in my experience, flowery, and a very professional-looking presentation.

Will Yang: When you’re emailing these documents as soon as you’re notified, what is your success rate in getting them back? Printing the document and scanning it, often the capability to do those tasks isn’t available. Of course they can mail them, but then they’re extending the deadline even more. What success rate have you had with emailing these forms and clients actually printing them, handwriting the answers, then scanning and sending them back, as opposed to a fillable PDF that can be saved and sent back?

Maryjean Ellis: It really depends on the client, their capabilities, and their cooperation. We give clients a lot of room when they have impairments. I hear a lot of clients say, hey, I’m neurodivergent, I can’t meet the deadline; I have ADHD, I can’t meet the deadline, I can’t do this. We just have to be pleasant nags.

Will Yang: I think what they’re looking for is a ballpark, a general percentage of folks you’ve seen this work with, when they scan it back versus the fillable approach.

Maryjean Ellis: I’m not sure about that. Some of my clients are kind of demanding the fillable forms. But not all.

Will Yang: A question from an advocate whose caseload consists of Deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind and Deaf-plus clients. They often suffer from language deprivation, which translates into an inability to understand the paperwork, so she translates it into ASL using everyday language they can understand and fills out the answers. Is that an issue, if she is completing their ADL and function forms on their behalf?

Maryjean Ellis: I think I would need to educate myself more about that whole process, I actually have not encountered that in my practice. That sounds challenging to deal with. But of course you have to meet claimants where they are, and do your best with what they need to use to complete the tasks. The other thing is, we often say to clients, can you have a family member or friend help you?

Will Yang: How are you editing the ADL form, if needed, upon review?

Maryjean Ellis: If the person is able, it would be great if they do it in their own handwriting, or if they type it, to type the answers, so that it’s all uniform and it’s in the same hand, so to speak. But we often handwrite the updates ourselves. And we sign, as I said, we make it clear in the signature area that both the claimant and we are completing the form.

Will Yang: What are your thoughts on providing the client with a how-to guide along with the document, a how-to that reviews ways to describe pain and give responses with specifics? For example, “I walk to the store” can be expanded to “I walk to the store, which is three blocks away; I often have to stop at a bench about halfway there because I get out of breath.”

Maryjean Ellis: I think that’s a great idea. If you can develop a standard package or a memo to send your client with some examples, I think you can’t go wrong.

Will Yang: We may have already answered this with some of the signs of AI, but: can you provide an instance in which a claimant would be able to use AI? They’re not sure how their claimant would use it.

Maryjean Ellis: I would prefer that claimants just stay away from it. Because it gives the impression, first of all, that they have the wherewithal to use AI, and that they understand the questions and their own situation better than they really do. I want any cognitive issues, any impairments, to shine through in the answers. And of course, with AI there are errors. I may not catch them, the claimant may not catch them. That’s my bias about AI, but I’m sure there are other opinions from other advocates.

Will Yang: We all know how busy SSA and DDS employees are, they work on hundreds of cases at any given time. Realistically speaking, how much attention do DDS employees pay to these forms? Is the information on these forms really used by DDS employees to either deny or approve claims?

Maryjean Ellis: My feeling is, yes, they do. And if not, they should. Just because Social Security or an adjudicator doesn’t follow the rules, the SSRs, the regulations, doesn’t mean that they’re doing it correctly, that they’re looking at the whole picture. So I think it’s important to do it.

Will Yang: Are you depending on the claimant to mail their original form in to you? We do a lot of forms on the phone with the claimant and send it through ERE.

Maryjean Ellis: I think that’s a great way to do it, on the phone with the client. Most of the time we don’t want clients putting things in snail mail, because it takes too long. Many clients are dropping them off in person. We tend to do a lot of things over the phone: when we have the form back from the client, we’ll call the client and do any updates over the phone. Or the client will email, but we always caution the client to block out their whole Social Security number when they use email, unless they use Dropbox or something like that, which is more secure. We don’t rely on the mail, and we submit everything using ERE. Some things they ask to be faxed in, and we fax them, with a barcode.

Will Yang: How do you approach claimants who are argumentative about completing the forms? Some completely refuse.

Maryjean Ellis: We do deal with that. Sometimes the relationship actually breaks down over things like that, and we need to withdraw because of the client’s stubbornness. I’ve had clients say to us, hey, you’re the secretary, you need to do this for me, why did I hire you? And what I say to those people is: we don’t know if you have trouble using the toilet, or what you do all day. We have no idea. We can’t fill these out.

Now, some people need a lot of hand-holding and help, and we try to meet people where they are with that process, by talking them through the answers. What we’ll say to some people is, do you have a family member who can help you if you’re overwhelmed? But if you’re angry and you’re just not willing to fill these out, I’m going to rethink whether I’ll be able to represent you, because unwillingness in one area usually translates to unwillingness and uncooperation in other areas.

Will Yang: Our staff here helps with the physical completion of forms when it’s due to, for example, language barriers or medical limitations. How do you typically explain that assistance in the form?

Maryjean Ellis: I would explain that in the remarks section, what assistance was needed and what was provided by the office.

Will Yang: Can using AI be used as a transferable skill, if the claimant understands how to use the program?

Maryjean Ellis: Technically, no, it wouldn’t be a transferable skill unless the person actually used it on the job in past relevant work. But I would still be cautious about letting a person use AI to negotiate their claim, because it shows a current ability to cognitively navigate AI.

Will Yang: What do you do when a client exaggerates their answers?

Maryjean Ellis: I would try to talk to them first and say, those probably aren’t the words I would use, but, I just want to understand, when you said this, is that an accurate portrayal of how you are most of the time, or is that just on a bad day or a good day? I would try to poke at it and see if the claimant budges at all. And I would look at their impairments and see if there’s some kind of mental health issue that explains it. If there’s a mental health issue that explains it, like a personality disorder or a somatic symptom disorder, I would leave it, and then try to explain in a separate statement to Social Security how that exaggeration is linked to an impairment.

Will Yang: Our last question of the day: what do you do when a client answers unrealistically and minimizes their limitations?

Maryjean Ellis: I hate to send those in to Social Security like that, minimizing. I really try to impress upon the client the importance of actually explaining to Social Security what their life is like and what their limitations really are. If it’s someone with a military background, I’ll tell them about my experiences with a veteran, people tend to try to power through. Is that true for you? I’ll try to poke some holes in their facade and see if I can get them to be more realistic in the forms. It’s not always possible, but I try.

Close

Will Yang: Maryjean, thank you so much for your time today. And thank you to everybody who participated in the Q&A with the thoughtful questions.

As a reminder, the recording and a written summary will be sent to you in the next few days. Please take a few seconds as you leave to fill out the feedback form, it’s always helpful for us. And we hope you’ll join us next week for the release of Chronicle Dispatch, our latest product, which takes advantage of the data feeds you have coming in from SSA and lets you communicate directly with your clients through a portal. You can find that on the events calendar. Thanks so much, everybody, hope you have a great rest of your Wednesday.

Maryjean Ellis: Thank you.