Sedgwick Reinstates Long Term Disability Claim Following Appeal

Like many disability claimants, our client’s experience in dealing with Sedgwick was less than a pleasurable experience. After finding himself unable to continue to perform the very physically demanding duties of his occupation as a Traveling Field Engineer for Avaya due to Chronic Pain stemming from multiple lumbar and thoracic spine conditions he filed a claim for short and long term disability benefits under his employer’s plan, which was administered by Sedgwick CMS.

The Initial Denial of Benefits

In reviewing his initial application for benefits Sedgwick had our client undergo an Independent Medical Examination. Despite a plethora of objective medical evidence, such as MRIs and physical examinations noting restriction and limitations, Sedgwick’s doctor indicated that there were no “objective medical exam findings” to support his inability to perform the duties of his job. In light of Sedgwick’s IME doctor’s opinion, Sedgwick denied our clients short and long term disability claims. Upon receipt of the denial letter he contacted Dell Disability Lawyers and spoke with Attorney Stephen Jessup.

The First Appeal

Attorney Jessup requested a complete copy of our client’s claim file from Sedgwick to assess the level of review conducted by Sedgwick and to determine what information would be needed to strengthen our client’s claim on appeal. The largest glaring inadequacy noted in Sedgwick’s review came in its evaluation of our client’s occupational duties. The only reference to our client’s job description was a four line blurb that gave a generalized overview of his duties as a field engineer. As his policies defined his “own occupation” to mean how it is performed in the national economy, Attorney Jessup turned to various governmental occupational information resources to gather additional information with respect to the physical demands of our client’s occupation. Admittedly, many occupations fall within “sedentary” and “light” demand level, but according to the Department of Labor our client’s occupation was in the Very Heavy demand level. Sedgwick turned a blind eye to this and instead reviewed his claim as if it only entailed his ability to do desk work.

Attorney Jessup then arranged for our client to undergo a Functional Capacity Examination to verify his inability to perform “Very Heavy” work and to further eradicate Sedgwick’s position that there was a lack of objective evidence to support an inability to perform his occupational duties. The results of the testing clearly documented our client was not able to return to his occupation as a Field Engineer. Following receipt of this report our client’s administrative appeal was finalized with additional Attending Physician’s Statements and updated diagnostic testing and then submitted to Sedgwick.

Approximately two months after the appeal was submitted, Attorney Jessup was advised by Sedgwick that it was overturning the denial of our client’s claim for short term disability benefits. Although this was certainly positive news Attorney Jessup quickly focused his attention to the status of the long term disability claim, which had been appealed at the same time as the short term disability claim. Two weeks after notice that the short term disability claim had been approved, Sedgwick sent a letter indicating that our client’s long term disability claim had been denied.

The Appeal for Long Term Disability Benefits

In denying the long term disability claim it became clear that Sedgwick’s sole focus was to discourage our client from pursuing his rights under this employer’s policy. However, he and Attorney Jessup were not deterred and prepared an appeal of the long term disability denial. Attorney Jessup argued that the same information used by Sedgwick to approve our client’s claim for short term disability was the same information now being used to deny benefits for long term disability benefits despite the information being contemporaneous to the period of long term disability. The lack of logic in Sedgwick’s denial was appalling, and Attorney Jessup set out to systematically address each and every contradiction in Sedgwick’s denial. Following the submission of the long term disability appeal Sedgwick was again left with little choice but to approve our client’s claim for long term disability benefits.

If history is any indicator we are confident that this will not be the last attempt by Sedgwick to try to deprive our client of his benefits.


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Showing 8 of 653 Reviews
Sedgwick

Worst Company Ever

Reviewed by RobRob on September 23rd 2024   Verified Policyholder | August 2024 date of disability
If something happens to you at work you better hope you die, my son is going through HELL because this company is handling his work comp. NO RETURN PHONE CALLS, TEXTS, EMA... read more >
Sedgwick

AT&T Was Great and Sedgwick Horrible

Reviewed by From a great job to a complete nightmare on March 20th 2024   Verified Policyholder | March 2024 date of disability
My Physician recommended that I take some time from a toxic environment after several deaths in my family coupled with AT&T trying to run tenured employees out of the door... read more >
Sedgwick

Lame

Reviewed by Dennis T. on December 11th 2023   Verified Policyholder | March 2022 date of disability
My experience with Sedgwick and personell is as follows: Unhelpful, unprofessional and an overall unpleasant experience.
Sedgwick

I was disabled 2003 by SS. I got SSDI 7 years too late.

Reviewed by Bunny on August 9th 2023   Verified Policyholder
I believe if Sedgwick would have moved on my Claim. They absolutely did everything not to answer my calls, change dates. I had already been through WV comp. Ins. Sold out,... read more >
Sedgwick

They falsify documents and avoid contact as much as possible.

Reviewed by Jeff Allsop on July 27th 2023   Verified Policyholder | February 2023 date of disability
They avoided sending the documents needed for the claim for two weeks. I had to escalate with a call from my company's HR and Sedgwick (the only way I was ever able to get... read more >
Sedgwick

Not getting paid

Reviewed by Cezes on June 15th 2023   Verified Policyholder | March 2020 date of disability
I been battling Sedgwick about my claim. I was to get paid today and I did not get paid.Sledges is the worse company I ever had to deal with. I been fighting with my b... read more >
Sedgwick

You have to be well versed in your rights when dealing with them

Reviewed by Lauren on June 3rd 2023   Verified Policyholder | May 2023 date of disability
I live in CA and have a very straightforward maternity leave case. Every adjuster is unaware of CA leave laws. They’ve gotten in wrong every time. You have to advocate f... read more >
Sedgwick

Sedgewich is the worst-immediate denial of all requests for treatment. Rubber stamps DENIED ALL RFA’s

Reviewed by J on May 31st 2023   Verified Policyholder | August 2023 date of disability
Sedgewich immediately denies all RFA. They’re ur team are THEMSELVES not a independent medical team…
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Answered on June 15th 2023 by Attorney Gregory Dell
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We are disability insurance attorneys that know how to get your short or long term disability benefits paid. As a nationwide law firm we have helped thousands of disability insurance claimants throughout the United States to collect hundreds of millions of dollars of disability insurance benefits from every major disability insurance company.

In more than 98% of our cases, our attorneys have been able to either get our clients paid monthly disability benefits or obtain a one-time lump-sum settlement. Our disability insurance lawyers have seen it all when it comes to disability insurance claims and we know exactly what it takes for your disability claim to be approved.

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Our clients include all types of employees ranging from retail associates, sales representatives, government employees, police officers, teachers, janitors, nurses, pilots, truck drivers, financial advisors, doctors, dentists, veterinarians, lawyers, consultants, IT professionals, engineers, professional athletes, business owners, and high level executives.

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Since we represent disability insurance claimants at different stages of a disability insurance claim we offer a variety of different fee options. We understand that claimants living on disability insurance benefits have a limited source of income; therefore we always try to work with the claimant to make our attorney fees as affordable as possible.

The three available fee options are a contingency fee agreement (no attorney fee or cost unless we make a recovery), hourly fee or fixed flat rate.

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No. For purposes of efficiency and to reduce expenses for our clients we have found that 99% of our clients prefer to communicate via phone, email, fax, or video conferencing sessions. If you prefer an initial in-person meeting please let us know. A disability company will never require you to come to their office and similarly we are set up so that we handle your entire claim without the need for you to come to our office.

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