What’s your name? What’s your date of birth?  Please state your Social Security number.  Questions such as these are commonly asked when people are setting up appointments, participating in important personal financial meetings, or completing other personal business.  Most adults are able to answer these basic questions without even thinking about it.  In this day in age, we have to make sure it’s a legitimate source we’re giving our personal information to, but, generally speaking, if it’s a credible source, people are able to verbally say their personal information when asked.  People with disabilities and health conditions frequently have to provide personal information on a regular basis because it’s required in order to receive the services and supports they need to live a successful life.

“Please state your date of birth and Social security number,“ a lady from the Social security Administration said to me on a recent call to fill out the application for a benefit I’m going to soon qualify for.  My parents were on the call too—in fact, my parents setup the call and were going to do it for me because we thought we had setup my mom as a representative for me so she could speak on my behalf (due to my communication barriers).  It turned out that wasn’t the case.  My dad called me on his phone, put me on speakerphone, and my mom put the lady on her phone on speakerphone so that we could hear each other. 

After calling me, my parents thought that the lady would be able to ask me a simple yes/no question such as, “do you give your mom consent to speak on your behalf?” She eventually did ask that, but first she needed me to state my date of birth and Social Security number.  My parents tried explaining think I use a communication app and type everything out—at this point, I was typing something out on my communication app to see if she could hear it.  She could, so my parents explained that I could type out my birth date and Social Security number—it’d just take awhile.  The lady agreed to wait while I typed them out.  After that, she allowed me to give my mom consent to help answer the questions.

The application for this particular benefit was absolutely ridiculous!  Not only did it ask for all of my financial information, it asked about all of my health history and capabilities. My parents were able to answer most of the questions and I chimed in with my communication app when needed. It took an hour to complete the application.  It would have taken a lot longer if my parents hadn’t been able to help.

As I’ve discussed in previous entries, answering questions and having to tell people about your condition and limitations over and over isn’t easy--especially in this scenario where somewhere in the system there should be most of the information from previous benefit applications I’ve done.  While I understand some health conditions change frequently, cerebral palsy doesn’t really change too much. People don’t like rehashing what happened to them or what they can’t do.  It adds another layer to it when you need assistance completing the interview (yes, theoretically I could have answered each question by typing it out on my phone; however, there’s no way a person at Social Security would have time to wait—it’d literally take a full day to do).  Thankfully, my parents are able and willing to help me with things like this, but I’m sure it isn’t easy for them either to explain my circumstances—again, we try not to dwell on my limitations.

In an ideal world, applications such as this would be able to be completed digitally.  People would be able to fill it out on their own, do electronic signatures, and be able to communicate through an online portal if clarification is needed.  It’ll be awhile, but I think things will become even more digitized.  The need to answer those seemingly degrading questions about my circumstances will always be a part of my life, but I’m hopeful that as things become more digital, the need to verbally state personal information will decrease.  For some people, having things become more digital has been an inconvenience; however, for people like myself, it has been amazing—I can’t wait for more opportunities to be available digitally! 

***The views expressed here are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of InControl Wisconsin, the Network or any of our sponsors.