Cigna Approves LTD Claim for Doctor with Parkinson’s

Prior to leaving his employment with a local hospital, our client, an internal medicine doctor sought our legal services to evaluate his group long-term disability policy and advise him as to whether he was eligible for long-term disability. Our client was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease approximately 5 years prior to considering filing for disability.

Our client wanted to continue working but he felt that his fatigue toward the end of the day, difficulty with fine motor skills, and occasional slurring of speech was affecting his ability to provide appropriate medical care. Our client’s pre-disability duties included evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of more than 25-30 patients per a day.

After being retained, we consulted with our client’s treating neurologist, reviewed all of our client’s medical records, spoke with our client’s employer, co-workers, and analyzed the occupational services performed by our client pre-disability. We subsequently requested the application for disability benefits on behalf of our client and assisted our client with the completion of his application. Within 45 days of submitting the application and all supporting documentation our client’s claim for long-term disability benefits was approved.

We continue to represent our client on an ongoing basis with his submission of his monthly claim forms to Cigna. Our ongoing representation of our client, means that the carrier can not communicate with our client and all communications must be through our office.