Articles Posted in Applying for benefits

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Preparation is key to the success of your Social Security claim for disability benefits. The agency will require verified information about your disability, including the date when your condition became disabling, the dates and addresses of your last treatments, and the date that you stopped working.  Prior to your interview, organize your medical records, making sure they are accurate and updated, and verified by a medical professional. A doctor’s summary of your condition, details about your treatment, and the kind of limitations the condition places on your ability to work must all be included and documented. Prepare for questions about when your condition became disabling.

Collect your worker’s compensation information as applicable to your claim. These documents must include the settlement agreement, date of the injury, as well as evidence of any other injury-related payouts you have received.  The agency will require information about your marital and family status, including the names of your spouse and children as well as dates of your marriage or divorce. It is important to have your bank checking account number available. Also, be prepared with an emergency contact in the event the agency is unable to get in touch with you.

For individuals unable to file the claim online, they must fill out the “Medical and Job Worksheet – Adult” document and bring it with them for the interview. The Social Security Administration (SSA) will also require Form SSA-827 “Authorization to Disclose Information to the Social Security Administration” in order to obtain sensitive medical information required to determine whether you qualify for benefits. This is a medical release form, and the agency will require you to sign and date the form, along with a witness’ signature, and return to the agency as directed.

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In many cases, persons who apply for and receive Social Security benefits may also be eligible for and receive other forms of benefits payments. These can include pension payments and Worker’s Compensation benefits. Your recovery of these other benefits could impact the amount of Social Security disability benefits for which you are eligible.

Your Social Security disability benefits can be reduced if you receive benefits under the Worker’s Compensation program or retirement pension programs. For example, if you qualify for and are receiving Worker’s Compensation benefits, then the law places limits on the amount of the payment that you can receive. You may not be eligible to recover more than 80% of your disability benefits payments in Worker’s Compensation earnings. You may be required to pay the Social Security Administration (SSA) back any extra payments that you may have recovered while receiving benefits under other programs.

Typically, your pensions will not be affected by your Social Security Disability Benefits payments. If the pension payments that you made during your work tenure were exempt from Social Security taxes, then your disability benefits payments can be affected. However, this happens only in rare cases because most pension programs will attract Social Security taxes. If you are on a Long Term Disability plan funded by your employer, then you will have your Social Security Disability Benefits payments reduced or offset as a result of this.

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December 1 marked World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to raising awareness of HIV/AIDS which has claimed more than 35 million deaths worldwide since it first came to light. There are currently 1.1 million Americans living with HIV/AIDS. Southern states, including Georgia, accounted for more than half of the new HIV diagnoses in 2017. In 2016, there were 2,585 adolescents and adults with HIV living in Georgia.

HIV is no longer imminently fatal. With advancements in treatment as well as the easier availability of drugs to treat the condition, patients can expect to live many years with HIV. The anti-retroviral drugs that are used as a primary treatment for persons suffering from HIV are very effective in helping control the progress of the disease. The feelings of fatigue and listlessness that often accompany the use of these drugs can leave a person with HIV unable to lead a productive working life.

HIV severely compromises the immune system, leaving the person susceptible to a host of other infectious diseases. As a result, a patient is therefore at risk of tuberculosis, pneumonia, cancer and other diseases. Recovering benefits for HIV is important because the costs involved in the treatment of this disease can be huge. With a lowered capacity to work as a result of the symptoms of the disease, a person may find himself or herself in financial distress. Recovering disability benefits for HIV involves providing strong evidence of the severity of the symptoms and their interference with your ability to work and earn a sustainable income.

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Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder, which affects motor functioning. The symptoms include shaking (tremors), rigidity of muscles, difficulty speaking, problems walking, and depression. Depression occurs as a direct result of Parkinson’s in 80% of those with the disorder.  While some of those suffering with this disease initially have relatively mild symptoms, which slowly progress over time, others degenerate rapidly.

Parkinson’s is currently not included under the Compassionate Allowance program, meaning that being diagnosed with Parkinson’s does not guarantee that you will win your disability benefits case. Thus, those with Parkinson’s must prove that their condition hinders them from doing any work they have done in the past 15 years or in another job for which they could be reasonably trained. It is generally not difficult for those with Parkinson’s to prove that they could not train for new employment. However, it can be more complicated to prove that you cannot do work you have previously done, depending on your prior work.

If you or a loved one is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, contact this law firm for a free consultation on your eligibility for disability benefits. 

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The Social Security Administration (SSA) lists vision loss in its Blue Book of disabilities that are eligible for disability benefits. Persons who suffer from blindness, however, may have special rules that apply to them due to the severely limiting and restrictive nature of their disability. For instance, a person who suffers from even partial blindness may be eligible for disability benefits. The agency defines vision loss as vision that cannot be corrected to better than 20/200 in the better eye, or involving a field of vision of 20 degrees or less, even after using corrective lenses.

However, you may qualify of benefits even if your blindness doesn’t meet these criteria. If your blindness or vision problems make it difficult to work or earn an income, we urge you to discuss your rights to disability benefits with an attorney. The SSA also has a higher income threshold for persons with blindness. If you suffer from vision loss, the monthly earnings limit that applies to you in 2018 is $1,970–which is higher than the limit for non-blind workers.

If you suffer from an eye disease or condition like cataracts, retinopathy, glaucoma or another disease that limits your vision significantly, talk to an attorney about your rights to a claim. Remember, however, that the SSA will not approve of your claim if you have good vision in at least one eye.

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A woman who has been diagnosed with breast cancer may be eligible for Social Security disability benefits. Cancer treatments like chemotherapy or radiation therapy can lead to extreme fatigue, and gainful activity is usually impossible during this time. Certain types of breast cancer, including unresectable or inoperable breast cancer, qualify for expedited processing of disability claims under the Compassionate Allowances program. When a cancer is as serious as this, it is important to make sure that your claim is filed with all relevant documentation and evidence to ensure that the claim is processed quickly.

Keep in mind that if the documentation, lab reports and pathological evidence you have provided is not deemed sufficient, the agency may deny your claim. Talk to an attorney and get your claim reviewed thoroughly before you submit it to maximize your chances of a successful claim.

If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with breast cancer, talk to Lisa Siegel, Georgia Disability Attorney, and discuss how you can begin the process of filing a claim.

 

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The Social Security Board of Trustees recently released their report for 2018. The report has few surprises for disability benefits attorneys–it predicts a 75-year deficit of 2.84% of payroll and that the trust fund will be depleted by 2034. However, the report released in June 2018 also estimates that disability rolls are dropping and will continue to decline in the future.

Some Americans argue that disability application numbers have increased in recent decades mainly because of fraud. However, there are several factors why the number of Social Security disability beneficiaries has increased over the last 35 years, unrelated to fraud. In 1984, new laws expanded the definition of disability, making more applicants eligible for disability payments. An aging population also resulted in higher disability rolls and an increase in disability payouts. Also, the increase in the number of females in the workforce raised the number of women who by virtue of their work history became eligible for benefits.

These factors converged to result in an explosion of disability beneficiary numbers. However, none of those factors seem to be active anymore. It’s very unlikely that the scope of the disability benefits program will be expanded any further. Therefore, it is safe to assume that disability rolls in the future will be lower, reducing the pressure on the program.

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To qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), applicants must be unable to perform any “substantial gainful activity” that pays $1,180 a month or $14,160 annually. This is roughly the income a minimum-wage American worker makes per year. Also, their condition must be expected to last at least a year or until death.

The analysis of the data from the Census Bureau by economist Ernie Tedeschi shows that the number of Americans ages 25-54 out of the workforce because of a disability has declined 7% since 2014. With 10.3 million people out of the workforce as of May 2018, this reverses an upward trend that had been in place for decades. This can possibly be explained by the growing economy over the last few years, which has allowed companies to hire more workers. University of Maryland economists Katharine G. Abraham and Melissa S. Kearney studied situations where individuals applying for disability benefits were assigned to judges who varied in their leniency. This allowed researchers to compare the outcome of similar applicants when they given or denied benefits. They found that for individuals whose cases for SSDI were questionable due to the acuteness of their condition, 28% of those people decided not to work who otherwise would have. This means that 28 out of 100 individuals decided not to work for fear of this interfering with their ability to successfully win disability benefits.

Robert VerBruggen, deputy managing editor of National Review, emphasized that the current SSDI program fails to accommodate disabled individuals who are still able to work in some capacity. He argued that reform to the program is “imperative.”  A long-term plan, he added, should include awarding temporary or partial benefits to those able to work, but limited in their abilities to do so. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan think tank devoted to reducing the deficit and debt, has published other potential options including subsidizing those with disabilities in their first few months back in the workforce.

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Today, fewer Americans are applying for disability benefits than in America’s recent history, with a growing economy and an increasing number of retirees leaving the program due to becoming eligible for Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare. In 2017, fewer than 1.5 million Americans applied for benefits through Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). This may be due partially to additional lower-skilled jobs being available in a growing economy which those with modest disabilities sometimes can handle. Additionally, employers may be more willing to accommodate workers with disabilities. Eric Kingson, a professor of social work at Syracuse University, added that when the economy is doing well, “employers are more willing to look to other labor pools and be more accommodating.”

However, getting the disability benefits in the first place has become harder today.  The Social Security Administration hardened their standard for awarding benefits without any major announcement. Overall, the odds of a successful appeal fell from 69% in 2008 to 48% in 2015. Nicole Maestas, a Harvard economist, said that the Social Security Administration analyzed judges who approved disability claims at a higher rate than others and singled them out for special instruction. This action may have been taken as a result of critics in the media exposing some abuse and fraud in the system since 2011, as reported in the Wall Street Journal and 60 Minutes.

As a result, the administrative law judges handling disability cases have become more skeptical of claims and less easily persuaded to approve benefits. Richard Browdie, CEO of the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging, argues that the process has become “overly restrictive.” However, Torsten Slok, chief international economist of Deutsche Bank, argued that this data contradicts the “post-recession narrative of an out-of-control entitlement program.”  Whatever the reasons are for these trends, it is clear that fewer people are applying for disability benefits and among those, less are being approved.

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