Can I Get Long Term Disability For Depression Or Anxiety? | Ohio LTD Attorney Answers

The answer to the question is yes. Okay, so you're watching this video because you want to know if you can get long-term disability with depression, anxiety, or any other mental illness. Yes, you can, but there are some problems we're going to have to talk about. First of all, and don't ask me how this is legal, and I'm going to keep investigating this, but most disability policies limit the receipt of benefits for 24 months if the condition is based on a mental health diagnosis. So yes, that policy you've been paying for for so many years that you thought was going to provide you protection for your life, or at least up until retirement age, it's going to limit your receipt of disability benefits for two years if you have a mental health diagnosis. So I spent the past few days combing through all my closed files looking at various disability policies and seeing how they define a mental health condition. If you've watched any of my videos before, I always say it depends, and I do that because every policy defines things differently, and with mental health cases, you know, and I've got several examples here, they're all kind of the same, but there's a couple things to watch out for. You're going to have your more general and your more specific. Now, I would say that when I look at the policies, as they get newer, the more revised policies, it seems like the mental health limitations are getting a little more general, and I think that's a catch-all. I think these companies have faced litigation and they've revised their policies to be a catch-all. So when I look at an older Cigna policy, for example, it specifically named the conditions such as anxiety, depression, and eating disorder, and if you had any of those conditions, you were subject to a mental health. Now, when I look at an UNUM policy, for example, it means any disorder essentially classified in the DSM. So, you know, you have to look at your policy and see, but the vast majority of them go to the DSM. The DSM is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, and it's used by clinicians to diagnose and treat mental disorders. So basically, most policies say if you have a condition that pops up in the hundreds of pages of the DSM, that is a mental health condition. One trend I noticed is the exclusion of conditions, and I'm going to read it to you from the UNUM because this one seems to be the most consistent. A mental disorder means any disorder except dementia resulting from a stroke, trauma, infections, or degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's. So basically what it's doing is it's excluding any condition that is caused by a structural process such as dementia that results from Alzheimer's or a stroke which can cause cognitive issues. So what does that mean to you? First, it's a wake-up call that your disability policy may cut off after 24 months. Second, that means we need to do an investigation together. The first thing I'm going to do when you call my office is I'm going to check the policy to see which one of these limitations applies to you. And the second thing I'm going to do, and this is what I often do in cases, I'm going to find out is that why you're disabled? Maybe it is, and we'll work with that if that's the case, but maybe that's a secondary condition. That's the most common thing I've been seeing is that people often develop depression and anxiety secondary to another condition. And obviously if you were working, had a great life, and then maybe you developed a physical injury, it's very reasonable that you've developed depression and anxiety. But the question is, are you disabled but for depression and anxiety? And that's what we argue all the time. People can still be disabled due to other causes, and the mental is just an additional thing. And there is actually good law in our part of the country that will help us shape that case and extend your benefits longer than 24 months. So to answer the question, yes, you can get disability benefits if you have depression or anxiety or other mental health conditions, but we're going to need to do some work together. I encourage you to share your policy with me and to ask me questions. Thank you.