Speaker 1: It's Friday March. I'm Oscar Emiras from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America for
Speaker 1: many people that have experienced long COVID. They've had to
Speaker 1: deal with not only prolonged symptoms, but the hassle of
Speaker 1: trying to fight for disability benefits. We still understand very
Speaker 1: little about long COVID and how severe the effects are.
Speaker 1: Can be difficult to measure. Ensures demand that there be
Speaker 1: evidence that a person cannot work, and some medical tests
Speaker 1: may not clearly show an impairment, leading to denials of benefits.
Speaker 1: Christopher Roland, business of health reporter at the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: joins us for the fight for disability payments. Thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us, Chris. Let's talk about an interesting angle to
Speaker 1: what's going on here during the pandemic. Obviously, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of people that experience their COVID infection in
Speaker 1: different ways. One of the more mysterious ones and and
Speaker 1: infections that have you know, this wider ranging effect on
Speaker 1: people is uh, those that are the COVID long haulers,
Speaker 1: so those that get long COVID, and you know it's
Speaker 1: a range of symptoms, the brain fog being extremely tired
Speaker 1: all the time, just not being able to operate completely normal.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these people are you know, trying
Speaker 1: to get a disability payments out of this, uh you know,
Speaker 1: maybe file for short term disability, long term disability in
Speaker 1: some cases, and what they're finding is a really big
Speaker 1: battle with the private insurance companies or the Social Security Administration.
Speaker 1: So Chris tell us a little bit more about what
Speaker 1: these long haulers are facing. So we're talking about a
Speaker 1: category of long haulers. So there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: do get long COVID. It can last for a number
Speaker 1: of weeks or uh, you know, a couple of months
Speaker 1: or even more. And then there's a category that where
Speaker 1: it lasts for quite a prolonged period, uh you know,
Speaker 1: three six months, nine months, and even some people now
Speaker 1: who've been sick for two years, um, and you know,
Speaker 1: they have this terrible fatigue and essentially they can't work.
Speaker 1: There's probably around you know, the estimates are there's maybe
Speaker 1: around a million people like this who have severe long
Speaker 1: COVID who've been sick for a long time and it's
Speaker 1: so debilitating that they can't function at their jobs anymore.
Speaker 1: They can't even barely compose an email. You know, they
Speaker 1: can barely walk around their house, go upstairs without becoming
Speaker 1: extremely fatigued and have you know, rapid heart rate and
Speaker 1: all kinds of serious pain and different problems. Um. But
Speaker 1: the problem with long COVID is that there is not
Speaker 1: any kind of great test uh medical tests to show
Speaker 1: what exactly is going on with your body. So you know,
Speaker 1: e k G s for these folks come back clean
Speaker 1: and normal. Um Uh, cognitive tests do not always show
Speaker 1: any significant decline in brain function. Even those people feel
Speaker 1: confused and exhausted. You can't measure exhaustion for the medical test.
Speaker 1: So when they apply for disability, uh, you know, these
Speaker 1: reviewers are looking at this stuff and they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: these are all really subjective symptoms, denying a lot of
Speaker 1: these people even have notes from their doctors obviously saying
Speaker 1: it would be wise that the person takes time off, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But what a lot of people were saying that. You know,
Speaker 1: these disability evaluations are based on function, not the diagnosis.
Speaker 1: So you can have the diagnosis, you can have the
Speaker 1: letter from your doctor. If the tests aren't bearing it out,
Speaker 1: they're more likely to just reject people. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: lot of this is the medical system trying to catch up, right, Like,
Speaker 1: so you know there wasn't even a diagnosis code or
Speaker 1: you know that you could enter into computer saying this
Speaker 1: person has a long COVID. You know that wasn't even
Speaker 1: around for a year after the pandemic began. But you're right.
Speaker 1: So even if you get diagnosed and your your physician says, okay,
Speaker 1: this person has a long COVID, you know, um, there's
Speaker 1: a whole other step that needs to take place. The
Speaker 1: physician needs to a test that you're so sick that
Speaker 1: you can't actually work. Um. You know, So for someone
Speaker 1: who has a physical job out outdoors, who has to
Speaker 1: climb ladders and as a roofer or something like that,
Speaker 1: or a painter or you know, has a lot or
Speaker 1: a lot of physical activity outside, you know they might
Speaker 1: have a better shot. But for a lot of office workers, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, white collar workers. Um, I've talked to people
Speaker 1: who are white collar workers who you know used to
Speaker 1: run marathons. I've talked to doctors who what ran marathons
Speaker 1: and they got lawn COVID and you know they were debilitated.
Speaker 1: Took them a long time to get back to work. Sure,
Speaker 1: a few though, it's you know, a variety of symptoms
Speaker 1: and um, it's it's hard to pin down. Share a
Speaker 1: few of the stories that you have people that you
Speaker 1: did speak to you because there were a few that
Speaker 1: you mentioned in the article. Through the help of a lawyer,
Speaker 1: they were able to secure some disability benefits. Others just
Speaker 1: flat out they just kept getting denied and going back
Speaker 1: and forth through appeals process and continually getting denied. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know, I talked to a woman, um in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania for example, who in and by the way, everyone
Speaker 1: I've written about they were got sick before vaccines were available. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I get a lot of feedback on these articles,
Speaker 1: Oh well they should have gotten a vaccine. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: I I deliberately picked people to pro file uh in
Speaker 1: these stories that um were you know, could not get
Speaker 1: a vaccine before, but when they got long COVID and
Speaker 1: the points still you know how long the difficulty is
Speaker 1: in obtaining these benefits even Yeah, yep. And so this
Speaker 1: woman in Pennsylvania, she was making over a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year as a home care nursing supervisor, so
Speaker 1: you know, dispatching nurses out to clients, in their homes
Speaker 1: who you know, need help. Uh, and it's a pretty
Speaker 1: complex job. She had a number of nurses that she
Speaker 1: had to you know, send out all the time, troubleshooting,
Speaker 1: you know, helping manage meds and do all these different
Speaker 1: things very you know, pretty high impact environment. UM, juggling
Speaker 1: a lot of things, multitasking, sending out emails, making calls,
Speaker 1: you know, arranging schedules, keeping track of a number of employees. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, doing performance reviews. I mean, you know, an
Speaker 1: array of you know, fairly difficult tasks. Thanksgiving twenty, her
Speaker 1: whole family gets COVID. Her dad dies, her mother gets
Speaker 1: long COVID, she gets long COVID, and UM, she has
Speaker 1: remained sick the whole time. So she you know, her
Speaker 1: unemployment ran out. Actually she did qualified for unemployment because
Speaker 1: she was too sick to work. So her extended sickly
Speaker 1: ran out and she um had to quit her job.
Speaker 1: And UH this past year she was applied for Social
Speaker 1: Security disability and after exhaustive medical documentation was denied. She
Speaker 1: actually does have a lawyer working with her to help
Speaker 1: her UM, and a lot of people do that because
Speaker 1: they know they're going to get denied and now she
Speaker 1: has to mount an up keel and so you know,
Speaker 1: not only she exhausted and stressed out and can't you
Speaker 1: can barely walk, you know. Uh, you know, she's been
Speaker 1: doing this bureaucratic battle. Um, so it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: situation then so other people who if you do have
Speaker 1: a lawyer, So some lawyers I talked to have they
Speaker 1: know how to what to help the doctors decide. You know,
Speaker 1: the doctors need to figure out how this is going
Speaker 1: to relate to your inability to work and document that
Speaker 1: very very carefully. A lot of doctors are unfamiliar with
Speaker 1: long COVID. They're also unfamiliar with disability applicate. So, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on what doctor you get where you are,
Speaker 1: if you're not in a big urban center with a
Speaker 1: COVID clinic along COVID clinic, you know, in rural areas
Speaker 1: they don't have long COVID clinics, you're not going to
Speaker 1: find doctors who are even familiar with US. And in
Speaker 1: the absence of those tests that will help bear out
Speaker 1: those diagnosis right there, you know, it's going to be
Speaker 1: a lot more difficult for them to obtain any of
Speaker 1: these benefits. So yeah, just an interesting side look at
Speaker 1: what happens for these people with long COVID and then
Speaker 1: the struggle just to just get any type of payments
Speaker 1: back for work that they were losing. Christopher Roland, Business
Speaker 1: of Health Report at the Washington Post, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for joining us. Oh thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez
Speaker 1: and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's
Speaker 1: big news stories. You can check me out on the
Speaker 1: Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us
Speaker 1: on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast