Exercise and Maintaining Your Disability Insurance Benefits

Every disability is unique to the individual patient, despite common diagnoses. While commonalities help treating physicians create their treatment plans with a certain level of confidence, your own responses and progress during treatment will guide your physician in your long-term care plan. 

Your treatment for your disabling condition may include a variety of therapies, medications, and other protocols. While experienced doctors and healthcare professionals may expect a certain level of exercise and physical therapy to be part of a treatment protocol, early success in exercise or physical therapy regimes may lead to a termination of disability insurance benefits. The insurance companies have evaluation tools they use to analyze disability insurance claims, and your physical improvement may provide them a basis for terminating benefits even if it is not justified. Your physical ability to exercise is just a small part of your overall health and well-being and should not be the determining factor of whether you should maintain your disability insurance benefits. 

Rest assured that if your disability insurance benefits are terminated after a review of exercise and therapy treatment notes, an experienced disability insurance attorney from Seltzer & Associates can help you appeal the decision. Our team understands the complex evaluation that goes into disability insurance claims as well as that each client has individual needs revolving around their claim. With decades of nationwide experience in handling and maintaining disability insurance claims, Seltzer & Associates is equipped to handle your disability insurance claim.

Exercise is Important to Treating Disabling Conditions

There are a number of benefits to exercise in general, but those with disabilities face additional challenges to maintaining an exercise routine. The CDC recognizes that those with disabilities may experience difficulty in engaging in certain exercise regimes, which also decreases the rate at which disabled individuals engage in exercise activities. The CDC advocates for community support to make public areas accessible and inviting to promote exercise for everyone. 

Benefits of exercise include:

  • Reducing the risk of other diseases, including cardiac diseases, high blood pressure, and heart attacks
  • Reducing the effects of anxiety or depression 
  • Improving muscle strength

Reducing the likelihood of developing additional impairments that could contribute to a further decline in health is another benefit of exercise. Of course, any exercise regimens should be discussed and approved by your treating physician so as to not exacerbate any existing health concerns.

Some limitations facing those suffering from disabling conditions may include reduced mobility, reduced strength, and reduced stamina. These limitations are often a basis for obtaining disability insurance benefits but do not provide a complete analysis of your disability status. Therefore when a disability insurance benefit recipient progresses in their ability to exercise and perform other tasks through increased strength, their disability insurance company may use their progress as a justification to deny or terminate the disability insurance benefits to which they are entitled. If this happens to you, a disability appeal lawyer will be crucial to your claim.

Maintaining Your Treatment Plan for Your Disabling Condition

Through therapy and exercise, you may be able to regain some of your abilities and work on maintaining your health. Following the instructions of your treating physicians is paramount to the success of your health and your disability insurance claim. Just as a disability insurance company may deny benefits for being what they consider too active, they may also deny benefits for not maintaining appropriate care related to your disability. Documenting your continuing care to your disability insurance company is an important piece of maintaining your disability insurance benefits, and your disability insurance lawyer can help you provide this necessary proof to your insurance company. You do not have to face your disability insurance company alone. Seltzer & Associates can be at your side through the claims process for disability insurance benefits.

Your Disability Insurance Company’s Investigation of Your Activities

Unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous people who try to take advantage of situations for their own benefit, no matter how detrimental their actions are to others. One way this has manifested is disability insurance fraud, where individuals exaggerate their health status to receive disability insurance benefits. While catching false claimants helps the insurance business and makes disability insurance resources available for those who need it, the deceit of a few prompts insurance companies to have an interest in monitoring their claimants’ activities and progress through therapy and treatment for their disabling conditions to determine if the insurance company should continue paying disability insurance benefits. Not only do disability insurance companies conduct ongoing evaluations of the claims they are paying, but they may employ more thorough investigation tactics. Through investigation, insurance companies have uncovered instances of disability insurance fraud, which provides them an incentive to continue the practice. While eliminating fraud benefits all of us, an investigation may also wrongly terminate a disabled claimant’s disability insurance benefits. Your disability insurance lawyer will know the proper steps to take to fight the termination of benefits and can work with your medical providers to present evidence of your ongoing disability and inability to work despite what observations were made.

Considering the Total Evaluation of Disability Insurance Claims

As mentioned, each claimant has unique factors that affect their disability insurance claim. Whether those factors are condition-specific or job-specific, your insurance company should not treat your claim as a generality. Even your disability insurance policy may have provisions that should tailor your complete evaluation specifically to you. If an investigator observes an insured going for a long walk, that does not negate the hours of time in pain or the medication required to recover from that exertion. 

The total evaluation of your disabling medical status may include mental health conditions that are not easily observed during periods of exercise but would prevent you from performing the duties of your occupation, particularly in high-stress medical scenarios that physicians and health care providers face. In addition, the necessary medications for your conditions may have side effects that prevent you from practicing medicine, such as fatigue, cognitive impairment, decreased dexterity, or decreased strength and stamina. Healthcare providers need to be able to work at the necessary levels required of their roles, or patients will suffer. Insurance companies need to properly evaluate the total condition of their insureds in the healthcare industry to protect their claimants and others.

Schedule Your Free Consultation

If your disability insurance benefits have been denied or terminated, you should schedule your free consultation with a disability insurance lawyer as soon as possible. Contact Seltzer & Associates by completing our online contact form or calling 888-699-4222.