Common Questions for Social Security Lawyer
Posted by admin on Mar 29, 2009
Q: When should I expect to actually start receiving benefits payments for SSDI?
A: You are not eligible to start receiving social security disability benefits until you have been injured for five months. You will really begin receiving payments the sixth month after the onset date of injury, since benefits are paid a month after they are due. If you have been awarded retroactive benefits, most claimants receive those payments in about 60 days. Remember that you will not receive retroactive benefits for the aforementioned five months you must wait to be eligible for benefits. If you have any questions regarding backpay or the length of time it is taking for you to receive your benefits, it may be wise to speak with a social security lawyer.
Q: Will your dependents also receive disability payments?
A: Yes, your dependents might qualify for disability benefits too. Unmarried children under the age of 18 are eligible. If your child is a student, he is eligible until he turns 19. If your husband or wife is 62 or older, he or she might be eligible for benefits. At any age your husband or wife may be eligible if he or she is providing financial support to your children that are under the age of 17. The payments your eligible dependents can get each month may be up to 50 percent of your benefits rate. Contact a social security lawyer, if you have any concerns about eligibility or applying for disability benefits for any of your family members.
Q: When you are currently receiving social security disability payments and your file is reviewed, what does it mean?
A: Your file will be periodically reviewed even after you receive benefits. A diary or schedule of when reviews should be conducted is established when you are awarded benefits and is based on the factors of your individual case. Most reviews are usually conducted every one, three, and seven years. Many state social security agencies have a bit of a review logjam right now, which means that many reviews are not happening on the one, three, seven year timeline. Because of that, you should be ready for a review at any time. Your file is reviewed periodically to assure that the most recent details about your condition are noted. Disability examiners are interested in determining whether your injury has improved, worsened or remains the same. If you are concerned about the results of a recent review of your file, it may be wise to seek the counsel of a social security lawyer. The experience and knowledge of a social security lawyer can be invaluable, if you are worried about losing social security disability benefits due to changes in your condition or employment.
Social Security Disability Benefits And You
Posted by admin on Mar 25, 2009
Along with every paycheck that you receive from your employer comes a corresponding deduction of Social Security taxes. For most people, Social Security is used for the purpose of retirement benefits that they can avail of when they reach the age of retirement. However, there is also a certain portion of your Social Security tax that can be used for a disability plan. Federal law states that in the event of an injury or some type of illness or disease that effectively hinders your ability to work, you can claim some Social Security benefits even though you have not reached retirement age yet. These disability benefits are designed to give you a source of income when you are not able to work.
Disability is defined by the Social Security Act as the inability to engage in any income generating activity because of a physical or mental condition that can either result in death or will last for a period of not less than 12 months. For many people, the confusion stems from not knowing when they can apply for Social Security benefits and when they can start collecting payments. What you should realize is that it is important that you file for disability as early as you can, even on the day that you are disabled if possible. The act of processing your claim can take much longer than expected and if you wait too long before doing so, you may miss out on some benefits, as well as run the risk of delaying the process even more. Keep in mind that even with the help of an experienced Social Security lawyer, the claim process can still take a long time. In addition, you will also have to be unable to work for at least 5 full months before you can begin receiving disability benefits.
The question of why the entire claim process takes so long…often lasting more than a year…is one that comes up often. Even with a competent Social Security lawyer on your side, the process can still take an excessively long time. While it is understandably quite frustrating to be out of work and at the same time unable to claim any benefits, the huge backlog of Social Security cases results in this inordinate delay. Since Social Security cases are processed in the order in which they come in, there is little that you can do but wait. In certain states in fact, the entire process has been known to take anywhere from eighteen months up to two years in order to get a hearing.
Even though a Social Security Disability attorney cannot get you to a hearing before an administrative law judge quicker, a good attorney will win your case before you are even scheduled for a hearing. A good Social Security Disability lawyer will have enough experience to know what type of evidence to collect as well as how to use any opportunities to your advantage, such as filing the claim with the Office of Disability Determinations or coming up with an On the Record opinion so that a hearing for your case may not even be necessary. With or without a social security attorney there are barriers between you and your Social Security Benefits. With a competent lawyer on your side however, the process can be resolved much sooner than if you take on the task of filing the claim by yourself.