Anyone have experience with unemployment/disability stuff? (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

The short version is this:

-MIL had a stroke in February.

-She was an office manager but now struggles with reading, can talk bit has trouble finding words she's looking for and has a terrible time spelling. In short, no way she can do her job right now.

-Company laid her off but said they would keep a position for her. Not sure how long they could conceivably do this. They are continuing to pay her health insurance though

-Both her former boss and family doctor have suggested applying for unemployment since she has no income right now

From the little reading I've done, it seems like doing so could create a problem. It seems as if you have to state that you can work and are looking for work to collect unemployment. Neither one of those really describes her right now. It also sounds like this could negatively affect her ability to win a permanent disability claim since an examiner may deny it based on the person's claim that they could work.

The money from unemployment would be huge right now since she was basically living paycheck to paycheck and has limited savings, of which the medical expenses are quickly eating into. As I understand it, disability claims can take a very long time to process. But screwing up the disability claim by filing for unemployment would seem to be an even worse thing to do.

Right now, our plan is to find a lawyer that specializes in this stuff to work through it. But I figured I'd tap the vast mind of the FFA to see if anyone else had been through something similar.

 

[Arsenal of Doom]

She should be eligible for some form of short-term disability. A lawyer is definitely the right move IMIO, since the laws governing short-term disability will vary by state.

 

[GroveDiesel]

She should be eligible for some form of short-term disability. A lawyer is definitely the right move IMIO, since the laws governing short-term disability will vary by state.

Not eligible. The state she worked in didn't require it in any way.

That's a whole nother story. Her company used to provide short term disability but apparently cut it several years ago without telling the employees. My MIL could have paid into it from her own pocket in the state she lived in, but she didn't know she no longer had it.

So she doesn't have any access to short term disability.

There's an obvious lawsuit there, but doing so would obviously cause the company to stop paying her health insurance premiums. My first thought was that it wouldn't matter since she could get covered under Obamacare, but she's also since been diagnosed with cancer. Losing her health insurance and going on Obamacare would force her to find all new doctors and severely limit her options for treatment. So suing and losing her current healthcare isn't an attractive option.