Social Security Disability Law: News and Facts

Has your doctor told you stop working? Has he written in your medical records that you should not be working? Perhaps your doctor has filled out a form for Medicaid (insurance through the Department of Public Welfare) that states you’re not able to work or you are disabled. Despite what the doctor has written or even told you, it does not mean that you are automatically entitled to Social Security disability benefits and it does not mean you have an “easy” case. The truth is, although it's certainly helpful to have a doctor on board and willing to support your assertion that you are unable to work, the majority of doctors do not know Social Security's definition of disability. Instead, it is important to understand that “disability” under Social Security is a legal determination that must be made by Social Security, often by an administrative law judge (also known as an “ALJ”).  This ALJ is a Social Security Judge who will ultimately determine whether you are disabled or not. ...

If you receive long-term disability insurance, your long-term disability insurance carrier will frequently make you apply for Social Security Disability. I frequently get calls asking about letters people have received from their insurance carriers threatening to cut off their benefits if they don’t apply for Social Security Disability. I  will explain how these policies typically work and what your rights are. In short, you should probably file for disability and you should definitely hire your own lawyer to help—not the insurance company’s “lawyer” or “advocate.” These “advocates” are disability mills and do not care about you, your family, or your case. They enter into contracts with insurance companies and do mass volume work. You won’t meet your “lawyer” until the day of the hearing and you’ll never speak to the same person twice (in fact, you’ll spend most of your time navigating phone menus and waiting “on hold”). When these companies lose your case, they’ll cut you loose an...

I often times have people ask me why did the social security consultative exam doctor tell me that I am disabled and I should not be working, yet Social Security denies my application. If a doctor has said that you are disabled, you might be thinking you have an easy Social Security Disability case. While this scenario is not all that common, it does happen. The fact of the matter is the consulative examination is a quick visit. If your there more than 30 minutes, that is very long. The consultative examiner is seeing multiple people that day and he/she wants to get done because they do not get paid alot of money. They also her paid per exam, not how long you are in the exam room.  The consultative examination doctors do not work for SSA. They are paid just to do some exams. These could be private doctors just trying to make some extra money.  From time to time a client tells me that they went to the Consultative Examination that Social Security requested that they go to and t...

Passive income refers to income that takes little effort to both receive and maintain. The earner of the passive income will not directly participate materially in the business activities related to it.  The most complicated situations arise when disabled individuals own their own businesses.  Generally, these businesses tend to be small and closely held - sometimes solely within a family.  This means that additional steps have to be taken to prove that any income realized from the business is truly passive.  You should make sure that the business is sold to someone qualified to run it and be prepared to show that you are not still running the business.  The contract of sale should include specific details about how and when payments will be made to you from the business, and what those payments represent.  If this is not possible, it may be best to dissolve the business in order to avoid any issues with Social Security. Having a stream of passive income sh...

Living in Michigan I represent a lot of clients from Middle Eastern Countries. Some are refugees; some have asylum; and some have become citizens.  Immigrants who are permanent residents or lawfully present foreign workers and have paid taxes into the Social Security system are often eligible for disability benefits. There are a few countries where residents cannot receive benefits even if they otherwise qualify. These include Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. SSI benefits are available to all qualifying United States (U.S.) citizens; additionally, residents who are not citizens are sometimes eligible for benefits, including U.S. nationals, aliens, and other non-citizens. As a general rule, an otherwise qualified immigrant who is facing deportation or removal is not eligible for disability. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) defines a "qualified alien" as the following: -a person lawfully admitted for permanent residence (LAPR) (this includes "Amerasian immigrants...

You should let your physician know if you believe that you need a cane, walker, or wheelchair.  You should try your best to obtain a prescription for the assistive device from your health care provider.  Even a simple notation from a qualified medical professional that states your assistive device is medically necessary can suffice.  In my experience at hearings before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), the ALJ may not be convinced that you need an assistive device if you obtain it on your own from a pharmacy or relative.  The use of a cane can prevent a worker from performing heavy, medium, light, and even sedentary work as it is normally performed in the general economy. Even in sedentary desk jobs such as those common in the administrative, secretarial, assembly, and customer service fields require workers to be able to stand and/or walk two hours out of an eight hour day in addition to sitting for six hours out of an eight hour day. This is because even jobs that...

SGA is an acronym for the Social Security term substantial gainful activity. According to the Social Security Administration's definition of disability, in order to be considered disabled and eligible to receive disability benefits, a person must have functional limitations (mental, physical, or both) that are severe enough to restrict their ability to engage in work activity. SGA, or substantial gainful activity, is tied to a specific monetary amount; in other words, a monthly earnings limit. To put it briefly, if a person who is filing for disability is earning more than the SGA amount, their claim will be given what is referred to as a technical denial. When a case is given a technical denial, the denial occurs at the social security office almost immediately, meaning that the case is never sent to disability determination services and assigned to a disability examiner for processing. Translation: there is no point to filing a claim if you are currently working and earning at le...