Disability claimants who have representation are as much as fifty percent more likely than those who do not have representation to win disability benefits at an ALJ disability hearing. There are reasons why disability lawyers and Social Security representatives have a higher approval rate than disability applicants at their disability hearing.
· En español | It's not required, but you do have a right to professional representation in your dealings with the Social Security Administration (SSA). This could be an attorney, or a disability advocate who isn't a lawyer but has passed an SSA-administered exam and met other educational and occupational requirements.
· Nothing guarantees you will get disability benefits, but if you have been injured, working with a Social Security disability attorney can significantly improve your chances of securing the benefits you qualify for. An experienced Social Security disability lawyer can strengthen your chances in a few ways: 1. By Understanding the Law
An SSI disability attorney can explain in greater detail. QUALIFYING FOR SSI The requirements for SSI require you to have little to no income, and one of the following: You must be at least 65 years old. You must be blind. A determination that you are disabled must be made. UNDERSTANDING SSI INCOME AND RESOURCES
Having an attorney working the disability claim is the chance to get updates on your claim, and to submit updates. It’s a unique chance in this situation. But when you go through an SSDI attorney, you’ll have someone helping you. Then you can understand what is …
Your odds of winning at a disability hearing before a judge are about 50%. If you have a lawyer with you, however, your odds increase to 62%, making your claim statistically more likely to be approved than be rejected.
Tips to Improve Your Chances of Getting Disability BenefitsFile Your Claim as Soon as Possible. ... Make an Appeal within 60 Days. ... Provide Full Details of Medical Treatment. ... Provide Proof of Recent Treatment. ... Report your Symptoms Accurately. ... Provide Medical Evidence. ... Provide Details of your Work History.More items...•
Receiving a settlement should not impact your SSDI benefits because it doesn't qualify as income, which SSA considers when deciding what you're eligible to receive. This differs from SSI (Social Security Income), where lawsuit settlements count towards the eligibility threshold.
The percentage of applicants awarded benefits at the initial claims level averaged 28 percent over the same period and ranged from a high of 37 percent to a low of 26 percent. The percentage of applicants awarded at the reconsideration and hearing levels are averaging 3 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
What Conditions Automatically Qualify You for Disability?Musculoskeletal disorders (e.g., bone, joint injuries, skeletal spine injuries)Special senses and speech (e.g., visual disorders, blindness)Respiratory disorders (e.g., chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma)More items...
Saying You Can Work – Do not say that you are able to work, or that the only reason you are not working is because no will hire you. If you are capable of working, you will not qualify for disability benefits. 2. Exaggerating Your Symptoms – You should not exaggerate your symptoms.
If you receive benefits through the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, the Social Security Administration (SSA) can check your bank account. They do this to verify that you still meet the program requirements.
Here are some suggestions for what an individual could buy to spend down a lump sum:Buying a home or paying off a mortgage, if the SSI recipient is on the title or has a lifetime agreement to be a tenant of the home. ... Buying a car or paying off a car, if the SSI recipient is on the title.More items...•
Protected Social Security benefits This protection applies even if a company sues you, you lose the case and a court enters a judgment against you. The following benefits are protected from garnishment and bank levies thanks to federal law: Social Security benefits.
Here are 5 of the most common SSI denial reasons: You didn't return all the necessary forms to the SSA. Your medical conditions would not last at least 1 year. Your assets or income are over the limit.
1. Arthritis. Arthritis and other musculoskeletal disabilities are the most commonly approved conditions for disability benefits. If you are unable to walk due to arthritis, or unable to perform dexterous movements like typing or writing, you will qualify.
OklahomaOklahoma is the hardest state to get for Social Security disability. This state has an SSDI approval rate of only 33.4% in 2020 and also had the worst approval rate in 2019 with 34.6% of SSDI applications approved. Alaska had the second-worst approval rate, with 35.3% of applications approved in 2020 and 36.2% in 2019.
Here are some common leading reasons claims are often denied: Lack of medical evidence. Prior denials. Too much earnings.
It can be difficult to bring a claim for disability benefits on the basis of anxiety or depression because the evidence used to support the diagnosis is based on subjective criteria. Objective measures, like an X-ray or a blood test, cannot tell your doctor what you are thinking or feeling in your day-to-day life.
No, the Social Security Administration (SSA) does not deny everyone the first time they apply. However, it does initially deny nearly two-thirds of all Social Security disability applications.
To calculate how much you would receive as your disability benefit, SSA uses the average amount you've earned per month over a period of your adult years, adjusted for inflation. To simplify this formula here, just enter your typical annual income. This income will be adjusted to estimate wage growth over your career.
You also need to prove that you are not meeting the Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA) of income per month. In 2021, that is $1,310. If you are earning more than that amount in a month, even if you have a disability, you are not eligible for SSDI benefits.
There are some key differences in SSI benefits: 1 SSI benefits are paid out of general tax revenue and not out of Social Security taxes. 2 SSI benefits are designed to help individuals with a disability who have limited or no income and who have no assets above a certain level. 3 To be considered disabled for SSI benefits, you must meet the same conditions as SSDI benefits — you have not been able to work for the last 12 months or will be unable to work for the next 12 months or longer. 4 SSI benefits provide cash to meet basic needs like food, clothing and housing. 5 You can earn up to $750 a month on SSI benefits as an individual and up to $1,125 as a couple, but funds will be subtracted from your benefits if they meet the SSI definition of income. So if you were earning $200 a month in income as an individual, that amount would be subtracted from the $750 benefit total, and you would receive $550 in SSI benefits. 6 If you are eligible for SSI benefits, you may also be eligible for SSDI benefits. If you think you qualify for both benefits, this is an ideal situation where an attorney can help you determine how to proceed.
There are some key differences in SSI benefits: SSI benefits are paid out of general tax revenue and not out of Social Security taxes. SSI benefits are designed to help individuals with a disability who have limited or no income and who have no assets above a certain level.
Many applications for SSDI benefits or SSI benefits are denied because they do not have enough medical evidence to prove your disability claim. One of the main jobs of your attorney while preparing for the hearing with the ALJ is to gather all this necessary documentation.
SSI benefits provide cash to meet basic needs like food, clothing and housing.
To be considered disabled for SSI benefits, you must meet the same conditions as SSDI benefits — you have not been able to work for the last 12 months or will be unable to work for the next 12 months or longer. SSI benefits provide cash to meet basic needs like food, clothing and housing.
To qualify for SSDI benefits, you need to have a disability or a condition that satisfies the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) definition of disability: You need to have worked in a job where you paid taxes for Social Security.
The standard fee agreement for disability cases used by virtually all attorneys is a contingent fee of 25% of the past due benefits payable to the claimant, with a cap of $6,000.
Each of the SSA’s Hearing Offices employs roughly a dozen or so judges, and each judge is expected to process something like 500 cases per year. Experienced practitioners have appeared before virtually all the judges in their area, usually many times over. ALJs are people too — they have certain preferences, pet peeves, and ways of conducting hearings. Knowing the judge’s tendencies allows the attorney to customize the presentation of a client’s claim to that judge’s temperament.
Now, what if, despite your and your lawyer’s best efforts, the ALJ denies your claim? The next step in the process is to ask the SSA’s “Appeals Council” to review the ALJ ’s decision for errors. Here again, an experienced disability lawyer knows how to frame appeal issues so that the Appeals Council will review the ALJ decision in the most effective way.
For a FREE, no-obligation consultation with an experienced North Carolina disability lawyer, please call 1-800-525-7111.
Our team is led by attorney Scott Scurfield, a Board-Certified Specialist in Social Security Disability law who has helped hundreds of clients over the years get the benefits they need and deserve.
Those who are denied initially have a significantly better chance of getting approved at a later point in the process if they have a disability lawyer helping them with their claim.
The requirements for SSI require you to have little to no income, and one of the following: 1 You must be at least 65 years old. 2 You must be blind. 3 A determination that you are disabled must be made.
Contact us online today for more information. We can also be reached at (618) 732-0146.
Many people file for SSDI and then have to wait about three months before they get any answer. Then, if they receive a denial, they get about six weeks to submit their request for an appeal. If that appeal request receives a denial, then they often feel like they’re out of options. In fact, they may be completely out of options.
Legal help never comes without some cost, but often people with SSI or SSDI cases don’t pay out of their pocket. Instead, a portion of their disability benefits goes to the law office as a payment for their contingency fee. There are caps or limits in place to ensure that these attorneys don’t take more than a fair portion of the benefits payout.
First, some background on the procedure of applying for SSI or SSDI: After you submit an application, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will start out by deciding whether you meet the financial and/or work-history requirements. If you don't, you'll receive a nonmedical, or "technical," denial. If you advance to the next stage, a disability examiner will then put your application through a five-step medical evaluation. (For more details, see our articles on technical disability denials and the SSDI/SSI determination process .)
Even if you're earning under the allowed amount, it can be much harder to prove that you're disabled if you're doing any work . But Social Security's claims examiners and judges also appreciate a long employment history, so being out of work for a long time might be a problem as well.
This isn't surprising, since applicants who are working over the limit that Social Security allows are instantly denied. Even if you're earning under the allowed amount, it can be much harder to prove that you're disabled if you're doing any work.
As anyone who's been through the process will tell you, it isn't easy to get Social Security disability benefits. Our survey backed up that general impression. Overall, only about four in ten (42%) of our readers were ultimately approved for benefits.
Clearly, you should see a doctor or other medical professional in order to create that evidence. One-third of our readers said they had not seen a doctor or other medical professional in the year before they applied for disability.
Finally, our female readers were somewhat more likely than the men to have applied for SSI—14% of women, compared to 11% of men. (Women are less likely than men to be insured for SSDI; almost 80% of men are insured for SSDI while only about 70% of women are insured, meaning they're more likely to have to apply for SSI.) As we've seen, SSI applications have lower approval rates than SSDI.
By obtaining a copy of the social security file and reviewing the prior decisions that were made at the disability application level and reconsideration appeal levels, a disability attorney can A) identify discrepancies and inadequacies in the development of the case and B) ascertain the strength of the medical record that was available to the disability examiners who previously handled the case .
For example, not many average disability applicants know anything about disability impairment listing criteria, vocational guidelines, or past work, or how social security decides that a claimant has the ability to perform other types of work.
Frankly, in many instances, the only way a disability lawyer or representative helps an individual at these levels is by making make sure that the claimant files their appeal paperwork timely, respond to requests for information, and helps to make sure that their client remembers to attend consultative medical examinations. ...
Finding errors in prior decisions can sometimes lead a representative to requesting an on-the-record decision from an administrative law judge. On-the-record bench decisions may be granted in cases where it is fairly obvious to the judge that the claim should be approved and benefits awarded , making the time-consuming process of scheduling and holding a hearing unnecessary (which can shave many months of time from a case).
initial disability claim, reconsideration appeal, request for administrative law judge hearing, appeals council review request, and federal court), however claimants do not have to have a disability lawyer or representative during any of these disability claim levels. So why should a disability applicant consider a disability lawyer or Social Security Disability representative?
Experienced disability attorneys can help in several ways, including: gathering the proper medical evidence. recognizing when medical records need updating or more evidence is needed. recognizing when it would help to have a medical expert testify at the hearing, and knowing where to find appropriate experts.
There are big differences between SSDI and SSI, even though the SSA administers both programs. SSDI is a type of insurance for people who've worked and paid taxes for years before becoming disabled. In contrast, SSI is a need-based program for disabled people with little or no income or assets, regardless of their work history.
First, a bit on the procedure at this stage of the process: After an application is denied, most states require claimants to go through a reconsideration review before they can request a hearing. (For details, see our article on reconsideration of SSDI/SSI denials .) Almost all reconsideration reviews lead to another denial (87%, according to government statistics from 2019). But the picture changes significantly when applicants get to the hearing stage.
These results aren't surprising. Experienced disability attorneys can help in several ways, including: 1 gathering the proper medical evidence 2 recognizing when medical records need updating or more evidence is needed 3 recognizing when it would help to have a medical expert testify at the hearing, and knowing where to find appropriate experts 4 preparing you for questioning at the hearing 5 anticipating what the administrative law judge may focus on (based on the attorney's familiarity with local judges who preside at Social Security disability hearings), and 6 knowing how to cross-examine the vocational expert in order to strengthen your case.
It isn't easy to get Social Security disability benefits. As anyone who's been through it can tell you, it can be a long, exhausting process. But our survey reveals two important points that provide hope: Don't give up if your application is denied at first, because approval rates go up at the hearing stage.
Our survey showed that hiring a dis ability lawyer makes a big difference in the outcome of SSDI and SSI claims. When we looked at the outcomes for all readers who hired an attorney at some point in the process, the results showed that 60% were ultimately approved for benefits, compared to 34% of those who didn't have a lawyer's help. That means that, overall, having a lawyer nearly doubled applicants' chances of getting benefits. (A government report from 2017 backs up this data; the report found that disability applicants who used representatives were allowed benefits 2.9 times as often as those without.)
The only real con of hiring a lawyer is that, if you win your claim, the lawyer will receive part of your back payments from Social Security. The lawyer can take up to 25% of your backpay, up to a maximum cap of $6,000 (but the fee has to be based on the amount of time the lawyer spends on your case). When we surveyed readers, we found that the average fee collected by Social Security lawyers was $3,750, much lower than the maximum (and even lower in SSI cases: $2,900).
If you're denied at the application level, it becomes more important to hire a lawyer. Disability lawyers know how to prepare a disability case for a hearing and they have the necessary expertise with Social Security rules and regulations to win at the hearing. Your lawyer may want to practice asking you questions that the judge might ask so that you aren't nervous at the hearing and so that you can testify (honestly) in a way that's helpful to your case.
Is hiring a lawyer for your hearing worth the money? In the survey of readers we did, the average attorneys' fee for those who hired a lawyer for the hearing was $4,600 (though more than half paid the maximum fee of $6,000). But the hearing is the last good chance you have of getting approved for benefits, so you may decide it's worth part of your backpay to hire the lawyer (and you don't have to pay if you don't win).
And if you don't want to wait upwards of two years for a hearing date, you might try to hire an attorney for help with the initial application.
If you don't want to wait upwards of two years for a hearing date, you might try to hire an attorney for help with the initial application.
If your medical records are insufficient, your lawyer could also help you arrange for a breathing test or ejection fraction test before you apply, so that you have a better chance of winning disability at the initial application stage. If necessary, a disability attorney can request that Social Security schedule (and pay for) an exam with a doctor or psychologist.
In your case, your lawyer would assess whether you could meet the COPD listing or the CHF listing. If your medical records show that you have poor breathing test results or poor ejection fraction measurements (gauging the blood flow through the heart ), your lawyer should be able to tell you if you have a good chance of meeting the requirements of one or both listings.
If your case has been denied by DDS, it may take an experienced disability attorney to spot any weaknesses in your medical history that may have worked against your claim, as well as any flaws in the disability examiner�s opinion, and submit new medical evidence or updates to the hearing office if necessary.
While there are some attorneys who will not take a case until it has been denied, a few others will follow a case from start to finish. A lawyer who represents a claim from the outset will know what medical records are needed to support your claim, and may have more pull when it comes to getting these records back from physicians in a timely manner.
A Social Security Disability (SSD) or SSI claim has its best chance of being approved at this third level of consideration, and it cannot be stressed enough that it is a real advantage to have a lawyer represent you at this stage. Statistics show that 60 percent of disability claims are approved by an administrative judge when the case is presented by an attorney, as opposed to 40 percent when there is no legal representation.
A lawyer specializing in representing claimants in disability cases can definitely be an asset to the individual fighting for disability benefits. This is particularly true if disability determination services (DDS), the state agency in charge of making Social Security Disability determinations, denies the claim at the disability application and reconsideration appeal levels, and the case later ends up before an administrative law judge at a disability hearing.