The answer is yes.

Once you are approved for Social Security Disability benefits, your long term disability insurance provider will simply pay you the difference between your SSDI payment and your total LTD policy amount. The exact amount they can offset will depend on the language of your particular insurance policy and the amount you receive each month in Social Security Disability benefits.

If you are receiving long term disability insurance and are going to be applying for Social Security Disability benefits, it may be in your best interest to consult with a disability representative.  Such an expert can help you understand exactly how your Social Security Disability benefits will affect your long term disability payments and whether or not your long term disability carrier can offset any of the back benefits that you are entitled to by the Social Security Administration.

To determine whether or not you are eligible for Title II disability, you will need to review the earnings summary that Social Security sends out to you on a yearly basis.  On page two of the earnings summary, it explains whether or not you are entitled to disability benefits and retirement benefits.   You should review your earnings record on page three and make sure that there are no earnings missing and that everything is correct.  If you find that there are earnings missing from the record, or that the amount of reported earnings are incorrect, you should send a letter into your local Social Security office with proof showing the correct earnings amount.  This proof will consist of filed tax returns and proof of the payment of taxes for the subject year.  In your letter to Social Security, you will need to request that they correct the earnings record.  This is very important because your monthly disability and retirement benefits may very well increase after the correction has been made.  For further information, please go to the Social Security website by clicking here.

Yes, you can.  You should apply for Social Security disability benefits as soon as you believe that you will be out of work for at least one year or longer.

Generally, if a claimant does not have adequate or enough recent medical evidence to prove their claim, Social Security will opt to have a medical examination done. This is called a “consultative examination” in the Social Security world.

Basically, a claimant has the right to have a fair, impartial, intelligent expert to review the medical portion of their claim. A medical physician hired by the Social Security Administration to review a claim should be the person to assess whether or not a consultative examination is necessary.

To maximize the chances of receiving a quality review of a claim, it is recommended that all claimants send a letter to the claims adjudicator assigned to their claim in the beginning of the process, advising as follows:

“I am writing to request that the medical portion of my claim be reviewed by a fair, impartial, competent licensed medical physician, osteopath, psychiatrist or psychologist. I object to a non-medical person evaluating the medical portion of my claim. I request that you maintain this letter in my claim file until my claim has been completely resolved.”

It is also recommended that claimants or their representatives remain actively involved in the claim, keeping in touch with the claims adjudicator often to resolve any problems that may arise, to keep apprised of the status of the claim, to determine what evidence is outstanding and to make sure that the claim is being processed efficiently and properly. By doing this, the claims adjudicator will understand that the claimant is very serious about their claim and that they are willing to assist him or her in any way possible to move your claim along.

Social Security decides a claim through a five-step process, which is called the “sequential analysis”.  It is through this process that the following is considered:

1.  Do you have a medical impairment or impairments?

2.  Is the impairment or are the impairments severe?

3. Will the impairment(s) last 12 months or longer?

4. Do the impairment(s) meet or equal the “listings”? (see other Blog post for the definition of “listings”)

5. Can you perform any of the jobs that you worked in the past?

6. Can you perform any other work in the general economy?

Social Security will carefully consider the above issues, along with your age, education and the type of work you performed in the past,  (whether it was arduous unskilled, unskilled, semi-skilled or skilled) in making a determination of disability.

Yes.  If you are collecting disability benefits from the Veteran’s Administration, the amount that you receive will not affect your Social Security disability benefits.  In other words, you are permitted to collect both at the same time.

The “Listings” are federal regulations which are found at 20 C.F.R. Part 404, which basically describes the severity of impairments.  The Social Security Administration relies upon the Listings to decide whether or not a claimant’s impairment has met or is equal to that listing.  If the impairment is found to meet or equal the listing, then it can be concluded that the impairment is severe enough to prevent a claimant from working.  Therefore, a claimant’s impairment(s) must meet or equal the severity level as described in the listings in order for the Social Security Administration to conclude the he/she cannot perform any substantial work.  This process is Step 3 of the 5-step sequential analysis that is used by the Social Security Administration when determining a claim.

The Adult and Children’s Listings can be found through this link on the official Social Security Administration website:

http://www.ssa.gov/disability/professionals/bluebook/AdultListings.htm

A claimant will become eligible for Medicare 29 months after the date that Social Security determines to be the onset date of disability.  For instance, if a person’s onset date of disability is 1/2009, Medicare would begin 29 months later or in 6/2011.  Approximately one or two months before a person becomes eligible for Medicare, an insurance card will be sent out to them with the Medicare coverage booklet and instructions.  There are four parts of Medicare.  Part A is automatically provided to a claimant, as part of the Title II disability award.  Part B is offered to a clamaint for an additional monthly premium (2011 rate $114.50), Part C is supplemental “Medigap” insurance which can be purchased for an additional premium and Part D is Medicare’s prescription plan, which also is purchased by additional premium.

It is Social Security’s position that VA decisions are not binding upon them.  Social Security and VA have very different standards and criteria which they use to approve disability claims.  If you are awarded VA disability and you are denied Social Security disability, I encourage you not to give up on your claim.  Pursue every level of appeal that you have available to you.  But more importantly, seek the help of an experienced disability representative so that you can greatly increase your chance of winning your Social Security disability claim.

Reconsideration is the second appeal level on a Social Security disability claim and occurs after the initial level of a disability claim is denied.  By filing a reconsideration (appeal), a claimant is simply asking that Social Security review the claim.  The claim will be sent to a new adjudicator at the reconsideration level.  Unfortunately, approximately 70-80% of the time, the reconsideration decision is the same as the initial decision.  The best way to avoid this is to retain an experienced professional disability representative to assist with the claim.  There are several states that do not have a “reconsideration” level on a claim. These states are Alaska, Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania and North and West Los Angeles, California. In these states, when a claim is denied at the initial level, the next appeal level is the hearing level.