Social Security

As some of my earlier blog posts have detailed, the pursuit of Social Security disability benefits is an arduous one.

Believe it or not, despite the relatively modest amount of monetary benefits disability claimants receive each month, the SSA will occasionally claim to have overpaid you!

The Social Security Administration announced that, effective March 17, 2014, it will expedite disability claims for veterans receiving VA service-connected compensation benefits and who have a rating of 100% permanent and total disability from the VA.

Appeal!

Years ago when I first started practicing Social Security disability law, the conventional wisdom was that with an attorney your chances of success at the hearing level of appeal in North Alabama ran as high as 60%-70%.

Unfortunately, the rate  of that high  success percentage  has plummeted.

In the practice of law, it is never acceptable to miss a deadline upon which you are required to file a document.  In most circumstances,  failure to meet a deadline can be fatal to your case.

Fortunately, if you have missed the deadline upon which you must file an appeal of an unfavorable decision by the Social Security Administration (SSA), it does not always spell the end of your application for disability benefits.

 
Theoretically speaking, they can last the rest of your life.

Practically speaking, there are a number of reasons why they may not.

Despite having been approved for disability benefits by the Social Security Administration (SSA) at some point during the application process, your claim may be periodically subjected to a Continuing Disability Review (CDR) by its Disability Determination Service (DDS) to determine if you are still eligible for benefits.

 
As we all know, it seems to take the government an eternity to accomplish any task, from filling potholes to passing a budget, and applying for Social Security disability benefits is no exception.

You can pretty much count on the Social Security Administration (SSA)  taking about four months to make an initial determination on your application.  According to www.ssdfacts.com, in Alabama only about 28% of the applications are approved at the initial level, which is below the national average of about 32%.

 There are two commonly available types of Social Security disability benefits available to individuals:  Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

That, unfortunately, is a very broad question.

Let me start off by saying that the social security disability hearing is not supposed to be an adversarial event, e.g. the courtroom-type action you see on Law & Order or Matlock with objections flying and lots of yelling.

A largely unknown problem with applying for Social Security Administration (SSA) disability benefits while drawing unemployment benefits is the competing oaths claimants swear: for disability it is that they can’t work at all; for unemployment it is that they can work but can’t find a job.