This fall we hosted the first ever New England Disability Awareness Essay Contest for elementary school students. To enter, students in grades 2 through 6 were asked to submit an essay telling us how they have been inspired by someone with a disability. Our hope was that, by reflecting on people with disabilities, children and their families would develop a lifelong understanding and respect for the disabled.
Many people have heard the horror stories of Social Security Disability claims taking years to complete. These applicants must endure one appeal process after another before (hopefully) finally receiving their first disability check more than two years after the initial application. Is there any way to get an early decision regarding your disability claim? Is there any way to avoid the long and drawn out disability appeal process? If you know how to play your cards right, you can get an early decision from the SSA.
When an individual is receiving Social Security Disability benefits, those benefits do not have an expiration date but the beneficiary must undergo continuing eligibility reviews to ensure that they still meet the criteria set forth by the SSA and that they are still entitled to receive the disability payments from the Social Security Administration. How often these reviews occur depend on whether or not improvement of the person’s condition is expected.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is in a state of financial crisis. There is nothing new about that information. Anyone who is familiar with Social Security benefits knows that these benefits are at risk unless serious changes are made to the way the program is run. Needless to say, the fact that Social Security Disability fraud has been a problem in the past, and is still a problem today, only adds to the financial problems.
Everyone who is up-to-date with Social Security news knows that the administration is in dire financial straits. Various government parties have been looking for ways to address the financial issues that the Social Security Administration is facing. Unfortunately, many of the proposed solutions have fallen short. The latest effort to cut Social Security by $750 million is no exception to this rule. Not only does it seem that this proposal will not address the financial issues the administration is facing, but may actually end up costing the Social Security Administration $6 billion.
The South Michigan Health Information Exchange (also known as SEMHIE) has announced that it has officially completed all of the required milestones necessary to provide e-Disability claim filing services to the Social Security Administration. What does this mean to Social Security Disability applicants? If the program works as intended, it may mean shorter claim periods and faster receipt of Social Security Disability benefits.
FERS is an acronym for the Federal Employees Retirement System. The system became an effective part of the benefits given to federal employees in 1987. There are three components of the FERS benefits program including the FERS basic benefit, the Social Security benefit and the thrift savings plan benefit. When an individual who has worked for the federal government becomes disabled and needs disability benefits to make ends meet, they often wonder how the FERS benefits are related to Social Security Disability benefits.
The goal of an administrative law judge is to determine whether or not an applicant who is appealing a denial of his or her Social Security Disability claim is actually entitled to the benefits that he or she is trying to get. As a part of this process, the administrative law judge must determine if there is any type of work that this applicant could perform in the national economy.
Nearly everyone has heard that the Social Security program is in a crisis. Without serious changes or reform, analysts are expecting the program to go bankrupt sometime in the near future. Exactly when that will happen (or even if it will happen) has been a topic of debate for quite some time. However, a recent report indicates that Social Security Disability benefits are expected to jump by 71 percent over the next ten years. What does this mean for this already-troubled program?
There is no doubt about it that the Social Security Disability hearing process can be a stressful endeavor. When a person is under stress it is not uncommon to forget that there are things that you wanted to mention to the administrative law judge who was hearing your case. In such situations an applicant may wonder if there is anything they can do to update their hearing testimony – especially if the information left out may be very important to the outcome of the case.
