Articles Posted in Social Security Disability Insurance

Our Boston Social Security Disability Insurance attorneys understand the importance of keeping up with current changes with the SSDI program.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Medicare’s hospital program expenditures were lower in 2013 than they were in 2012. This is thought to show a leveling off of the increases in health care costs that we have been experiencing. Based upon these promising trends, the Social Security Administration is predicting that it will be able to pay all benefits through the year 2030. The last estimate predicted funding to run out in 2026. Some of this reduction was credited to lower hospitalization rates.

While the Medicare program is doing well as of late, the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) fund will only be able to pay just over 80 percent of current benefits by 2016. One suggestion to help alleviate the strain on the SSDI fund is allocate more of the money from payroll taxes to the SSDI program by reducing the amount allocated to the Medicare program for retired workers.
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Williams v. Colvin, an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, involved a 44-year-old claimant who applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits due to what she called a cascade of physical and psychological events that occurred in 2002. She claimed that she was no longer able to work due to fibromyalgia, which is a neurological condition that can cause extreme neurological pain and emotional distress.

Some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia, as noted by the U.S. Court of Appeals, are musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, memory loss, mood disorders, and general problems with the way in which the brain processes pain. This is a very serious condition that has affected millions of Americans, though it has only recently been accepted as a legitimate illness. For many years, patients suffered unimaginable and debilitating pain, while basically being told they were imagining the illness.

The administrative law judge (ALJ) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) made a finding in 2012 that fibromyalgia did in fact leave the claimant in this case unable to work, but he found that her date of disability for the purposes of obtaining benefits was 2008 rather than 2012.

As your Boston disability attorney can explain, upon a finding of disability by an ALJ, you may be entitled to a retroactive award of benefits, so the date in which you were determined to be disabled is obviously significant.
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Our Boston SSDI lawyers urge claimants to understand that they may be required to pay taxes on any benefits received. If you are the beneficiary of a private insurance plan and also the recipient of SSDI benefits, your insurance plan may require reimbursing them for any benefits collected from the Social Security Administration. However, the insurance company may not be concerned about the tax consequences you may face and the money you may to owe to the IRS.

It is important to keep in mind that private insurance companies and the Social Security Administration are often much more concerned about their respective bottom lines than your wellbeing.

According to a recent story in Forbes, a disabled woman began receiving benefits from her private insurance plan. The plan required that any benefits received under the plan be reduced by any Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) she received from the Social Security Administration (SSA).
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Close to half of all Americans have more credit card debt than savings. According to CBS News, the overall personal savings rate in the United States fell even as Americans increased spending. This has resulted in a situation where a lot of people don’t have cash on hand to pay their debts.

If you become disabled, your debt problems could become much worse. After all, if you are sick and unable to work, you will not have income to pay your bills. You may also incur additional medical expenses and costs that make your debt rise. This is especially true if it takes a long time to get Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits approved. For many, this process can take months, even with the help of a Boston disability lawyer, because the SSA works slowly and because many initial claims are denied.
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Our Boston SSDI lawyers know that the task of applying for benefits can really seem like an uphill battle to an unrepresented claimant.

In Murphy v. Colvin, an appeal filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the claimant was admitted to the hospital after having a stroke. The examining physicians noted a past history of headaches and issues with her speech. The doctor noted that, while the claimant could read a basic sentence, she would sometimes substitute random words.

The doctor also diagnosed the claimant with a degree of weakness on her right side and a neurological condition which affected sensation and caused her to be unaware of the location of her own hand without looking at it. The doctor recommended physical therapy.
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Our Boston disability lawyers understand that many people need SSDI with costs of private insurance going up every billing period.

According to a recent article in the Portland Herald Press, employers are starting to phase out benefits, including long-term disability insurance. Many people do not realize the importance of having long-term disability coverage. This type of disability insurance, as its name implies, will provide benefits on a long-term basis for people whose disability makes it difficult or impossible to work in the same or similar job that they had before becoming disabled. To get an idea about how important having disabled coverage may be, statistically, one in 20 workers will become disabled before their retirement.

The key to understanding how long-term disability insurance differs from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is to look at how a disability is defined. With long-term disability coverage, if you become disabled and can no longer perform the services required for your current job, you may be declared disabled for the purposes of benefit eligibility.
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The Highway Transportation fund is broke because gas taxes have not been raised since 1993 — and cars today are more fuel-efficient and use less gas. Rather than raise the gas tax, some lawmakers want to take money away from the disabled. The proposal is just one more way in which the Social Security Disability benefits program is under attack and the disabled are at risk.

Those who cannot work due to medical problems deserve to receive benefits to support themselves and their families. A Boston disability lawyer should be consulted to provide help for those applying for benefits or for individuals whose benefits claims are denied.
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Social Security Disability benefits are difficult to get for applicants and as our Boston disability lawyersrecently wrote, there is serious budget shortfall that could result in a significant benefits reduction if Congress does not act. While most people are aware of these challenges, however, the Huffington Post has recently reported on “dramatic changes” that “threaten to end Social Security as we know it” that almost no one has heard of.

The Huffington Post was talking about Vision 2025, which is a long-range plan that the head of the Social Security Administration has drafted. The plan would make it much more difficult for people seeking help with Social Security issues to get the benefits they need.
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Young people who are disabled before they reach the age of 18 face many challenges. Many people who are disabled as children do not get the education and job training they need to earn a comfortable living on their own. Because they do not earn work credits, they also may be ineligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and may be left to rely on benefits provided by Supplemental Security Income (SSI) only.

While SSI is an important safety net for low-income disabled individuals, it often provides much less money per month than SSDI. Children who are disabled should consult with a Boston disability lawyer or information on whether they can qualify for SSDI based on their parents work record. States also need to do a better job preparing disabled young people for jobs that they may be qualified to do even with their medical condition.
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One of the reasons politicians have been fretting over the future of programs like Social Security Disability Insurance is that the large baby boomer generation is increasingly seeking access to them.

This was expected, though admittedly, it’s not something for which legislators and government agencies have been well-prepared. So now, rather than expanding access to the offices that provide these services, we are actually seeing a significant reduction.

SSDI lawyers in Massachusetts understand that this has translated in the closure and threatened closure of Social Security Administration offices nationwide. The agency is seeking a shift from in-person contact to electronic communication in order to save money.
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