Why use this
Plain answers to what you're probably wondering.
You got a letter. You're deciding whether some website is worth your time. Fair. Here's the honest version.
Is this AI? Should I be worried about that?
One part of it uses AI: the part that reads your letter and pulls out the dates and the reason they gave you. That's all it does. It reads.
The AI does not decide anything about your case. It doesn't decide if your letter is wrong. It doesn't decide what your deadline is. Those come from the actual rules, and the tool shows you which rule every single time.
We also check the AI's work. If it says your letter has a date on it, it has to point to the exact words on your letter where it saw that date. If it can't point at the words, we throw that out. So it can't make something up and slip it past you.
Why not just paste my letter into ChatGPT?
You can, and it will help some. But here's the thing it usually gets wrong, and it's the thing that costs people their health coverage.
Ask a chatbot when you have to appeal by, and it will probably tell you you have 90 days.
That's true. It's also the answer that can leave you with no coverage for months.
Because there are really two different dates:
This is the last day you can appeal at all. But if you wait that long, your benefits already stopped. You go without coverage the whole time they're deciding — and that can take months.
If you file your appeal by this date, your benefits keep going while they decide. You don't lose coverage in the meantime. This is the date that actually matters, and it's the one people miss.
This tool finds both dates from your letter and tells you which one to act on. It doesn't remember a general rule — it does the math on your actual dates.
It asks you things you didn't know to ask
A chatbot answers the question you typed. It can't ask you the question you didn't know existed.
A lot of people get cut off for "not meeting work requirements" when the work requirement was never supposed to apply to them in the first place. You might be in that group and have no idea. For example, if you:
- take care of a child, or take care of someone who's disabled
- are pregnant, or recently gave birth
- have a health condition, a disability, or a mental health condition
- are a veteran with a disability rating
- are American Indian or Alaska Native
- were in foster care when you turned 18
- are in a drug or alcohol treatment program
This tool just asks you. Nobody tells you these categories exist — and you can't look up something you've never heard of.
It checks the letter itself, not just what it says
The county doesn't get to send you any letter it wants. The law says a letter like this has to include certain things — like telling you how to appeal, and telling you that you can keep your benefits while you do.
If they left something out, that by itself can be a reason to appeal. Most people never check, because most people don't know there's a list.
This tool checks the list.
It knows the rules changed
Rules change. This is a big deal right now, because a lot of them are changing.
Your letter has to follow the rules from the day it was written — not today's rules. So a letter from July gets checked against July's rules, even if you're reading this in December.
A chatbot doesn't know that. It'll use whatever rules it happened to learn. This tool keeps track of when each rule started and stopped, and it tells you which day's rules it used.
And if it can't find the date on your letter, it says so and stops instead of guessing. We'd rather tell you we don't know than tell you something wrong.
What happens to my letter? Who sees it?
- Nothing you paste is saved. When you close the page, it's gone.
- There's no account. No sign-up. No email. No password.
- We don't ask your name, and we don't want it.
- The ZIP code box is optional. It's only used to look up who your representatives are, and only while the page is open.
- It's free. There's nothing to buy here and nobody is going to call you.
What this will not do
- It won't tell you that you'll win. Nobody can tell you that, and anyone who does is guessing.
- It's not a lawyer. It can't represent you or give you legal advice.
- It won't make up facts about your case. If it can't find something in your letter, it leaves it out.
If you can talk to legal aid, do that
A real person at a legal aid office beats this tool every time. If you can get one on the phone, go do that first.
This exists because most people can't. Legal aid offices are overwhelmed, and a lot of people never even get a call back before their deadline passes. This is meant to get you something useful today — including a list of exactly what to ask legal aid when you do reach them.
Find legal aid in California →
One more thing
Most people who lose benefits lose them over paperwork — a form that didn't arrive, hours that didn't get verified, a renewal sent to an old address. Not because someone looked at their case and decided they didn't qualify.
That kind of loss is the easiest kind to undo. It's also the kind almost nobody appeals, because appealing means knowing a deadline exists and that it's sooner than you'd think.
That's the whole reason this is here.