Articles Posted in Social Security / Disability

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated October 1, 2026. A lumbar MRI shows a disc. It does not show pain, and the rules Social Security applies to a Michigan disability claim are written around that gap. The agency has a two-step method…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 12, 2026. A psychiatric chart in Michigan will often describe a patient’s depression as moderate, and the same word appears in Social Security’s disability listings with a different job. The listings rate limitation on a…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 9, 2026. A Michigan workers’ compensation case that ends in a redemption produces one check, and Social Security treats that check as if it were still being paid out week by week. The offset that…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 8, 2026. The date a Michigan Social Security Disability claim is approved has very little to do with the date its benefits begin. Three rules fix that starting point, all of them counted backward from…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 8, 2026. Some Michigan Social Security Disability denials are issued before anyone at the agency reads a medical record. The claim fails on insurance coverage or on earnings, two questions Social Security answers first, and…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 9, 2026. A letter from a treating physician stating that a patient is disabled and cannot work is the document Michigan claimants most often bring to a first meeting, and it is the document Social…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 8, 2026. A Michigan Social Security Disability hearing comes with a filing deadline that arrives in the hearing notice and is easy to read past. Written evidence not already in the file has to be…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 9, 2026. A Michigan veteran’s Social Security earnings record can be worth more than the pay history behind it. For active-duty service through 2001, the regulations add wages that were never actually paid, and those…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated September 9, 2026. Two Michigan Social Security Disability denials have nothing to do with whether the claimant is disabled. One follows a missed consultative examination. The other follows a prescribed treatment the claimant did not pursue,…

By Kelly M. Neumann, a Michigan Social Security Disability attorney and Principal Attorney at Neumann Law Group. Last updated August 1, 2026. A 56-year-old Michigan machinist limited to sedentary work is asked a question that a 48-year-old with the same file is not, and the answer usually decides the claim. The question is whether the skills…