One of the things I do often, but especially as the year ends, is check the numbers surrounding our Social Security Disability cases. As I do that this year there are two numbers that come together in a way that I think shows a lot about who we are and what we do.
We always ask all of our clients how they were referred to us. I am happy to report that the percentage referred by previous clients keeps going up. That shows that we are not only doing our job, but doing it well. As in any business, satisfied customers are your best source of goodwill and free advertising.
The other number is the percentage of cases we win at the Initial Application (IA) level. We win just over 50% of our claims at IA when we get to file the claim. The nationwide average is only 36%, and even though the states in which we practice have the highest percentage of IA wins, I think our number is still impressive, since we do not get that many “presumptive disability” or “compassionate allowance” cases.
We are winning cases at Initial Application and getting money into our clients hands many months sooner than if they had filed on their own and had to wait for a hearing, or if they had gone to another firm that told them, as many do, to file the Initial Application themselves and come back when they were denied.
The result is obvious: we have more and more satisfied clients who mention us favorably. I would certainly like to thank them; but I think the thanks also has to go our staff of excellent paralegals, who file the claims and make sure the records get to Social Security so that our deserving clients win sooner rather than later and become spokespersons for the job we do!
Lew Insler