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Does Crohn’s disease qualify as a disabling long-term condition?

by | Feb 8, 2021 | Long Term Disability Claim Denial

A two-part response reasonably emerges to the above-posed headline query leading off today’s blog post.

For starters, Crohn’s’ disease is a condition that is unquestionably debilitating for many people who suffer from it. There is no cure for the Crohn’s disease, and individuals who deal with it often face stark – even life-threatening – challenges for a lifetime. As such, many people covered under company-sponsored ERISA plans do qualify for long-term disability benefits.

And now for the second part of the answer:  Even though they qualify, they don’t always get the LTD benefits they are entitled to without a fight with their insurance carrier. Insurers often challenge any condition that they can argue isn’t routinely established by hard objective evidence, and Chron’s disease manifests itself with a variety of symptoms. Sufferers are not always affected in the same way, and that fact is often exploited by insurance carriers.

What is Crohn’s disease, and why is it debilitating?

The Mayo Clinic underscores the serious nature of Crohn’s as an inflammatory bowel disease adversely impacting an individual’s digestive tract. When symptoms come on strong (again, they do so often for many sufferers), they can cause symptoms and conditions including the following:

  • Stomach cramping and other forms of pain
  • Diarrhea, fatigue and fever
  • Weight loss and dampened appetite
  • Liver, skin, eye and joint inflammation
  • Kidney stones

The last thing a person suffering from Crohn’s disease needs is push back from an insurer aimed at denying or terminating their legitimate long-term disability claim.

We know through experience at the ERISA Law Center that a common response to Crohn’s disease related LTD claims, is a denial by the insurer and that “most insurers expect you to give up without a fight.”

Don’t do so. Timely and knowledgeable input from an experienced ERISA law litigation attorney can help a claimant fully protect their benefits and secure an optimal outcome in a disability claim.

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