It goes without saying, the older you are, the better chance you have of being awarded disability. Age 50 is the “cut off” point for claimants filing for social security disability. If you had two claimants with nearly identical disabilities and backgrounds and only one of them is older than 50, the older claimant is more likely to receive benefits than the younger claimant. Claimants younger than 50 simply have a harder burden to overcome, although it is not impossible.

Why is it harder for younger claimants to receive disability benefits? If you are disabled it does not matter how old you are, right? Well not exactly. The social security administration has stated that even if a claimant cannot perform substantially all sedentary work, it does not mean that they are entitled to receive benefits. The reason being your background may dictate you working in another field. The SSA will look at your age, education, work experience, etc and determine if you have any transferable work skills that enable you to work despite your disability. This becomes important when you have a disability that prohibits you from doing substantially all sedentary work and you are below age 50. The SSA believes that claimants under age 50 have not yet reached an age that is old enough to limit their ability to adjust to other work. Is it fair, probably not especially if you are 47 and have the same disability as a claimant who is 51. But in defense of the SSA policy, there has to be some point where advanced age significantly becomes a factor.

Claimants under age 50 are put up against the task of having to rebut the testimony of a vocational expert at their hearing. This is a difficult task for many claimants. Vocational experts have often times heard several cases and have years of experience. Social security disability attorneys deal with vocational experts on a daily basis. If you find yourself in this situation, you are better off having counsel on your side to handle the cross examination of a vocational expert.

Notwithstanding your age, what kind of limitations will end in a favorable decision? While these are no per se conditions that would end in benefits, if present they greatly improve your chances of receiving disability benefits despite your age. Claimants who have attained the age of 45, meet the grids and are unable to read or write in English or speak English generally requires a finding of disability. Claimants under 45 do not have this luxury. A significant deterioration in the use of hands and fingers limits the amount of jobs a claimant could possibly do despite their disability. Claimants with difficulty doing a significant amount of prolonged sitting, standing, walking reduce the amount of transferable jobs available for a younger claimant. Visual limitations as well as severe mental impairments reduce the amount of available jobs. This list is not exhaustive, but it provides a good base to give you a better chance of predicting the result of your SSDI hearing.

While we have stressed the importance of an experienced social security disability attorney before, it is not any more important than it is if you are under age 50. If you are in this situation I would suggest you contact an attorney prior to your hearing.

Many claimants are concerned with what they need to do in preparation for their SSDI or SSI hearing. Everybody is different, but it seems to me that the best thing a claimant can do is prepare for the types of questions you will be asked. If you have a social security disability attorney and you do exactly what he or she tells you to do, then you will be more than prepared for your SSDI or SSI hearing.

This post is designed to give you an idea of the types of questions and issues that may arise at your hearing. While every hearing is different depending on the disability in question, you can be assured that many of the questions you read here may come up at your hearing.

Many of the types of questions that will be presented revolve around the sequential evaluation process, see prior; posts August 24th - September 1st. The majority of the questions will focus on your background, medical history, education, age, and your work experience, with an emphasis on your past work experiences and your medical history.

With that said, what should you do? Well for starters you should have a list of the jobs you have done in the past 15 years. You should be able to describe the types of things you did, the names of employers, what made you stop working, length of employment etc. The more information you have concerning your past work experiences the more prepared you will be for your SSDI or SSI hearing.

You should also be able to describe with a certain degree of precision your past medical history. It is best if you keep a log of when you have visited doctors and the purpose of your appointments, prescriptions you have taken in the past and are currently taking, and anything you feel would be relevant to show the ALJ that would help your claim. While the ALJ will have the information they need prior to the hearing, the more you know and the more comfortable your are with your medical history the less likely you will get confused with questions posed by the ALJ.

It is also a good idea to start keeping track of the day-to-day things that have bothered you in relation to your disability. You should describe pain that you have experienced, fatigue, shortness of breath, and any information you feel that would better prepare you to describe why it is you are no longer able to work. You may also want to be comfortable with describing how your disability affects the things you do daily. Walking, sitting, standing etc.

The best thing you can do is be able to answer the million dollar question. Notwithstanding your disability why are you unable to continue working? If you do have a social security disability attorney handling your case, then your job is much easier than those without counsel. Your disability attorney will get information from you and arrange it in the most persuasive way possible to achieve a desirable result.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Having an experienced, qualified social security disability lawyer on your side will make this process much easier on you. However if you do decide to tackle this on your own, just use your common sense. If you were the ALJ what would you want to know about your case that answers that question above.

So you have been awarded disability and you have started receiving SSDI or SSI benefits, are you done with the Social Security Administration (SSA)? Not necessarily. SSDI and SSI claimants are required to be reviewed by the SSA every three years, however if you have a permanent impairment such as an amputation you may not be required to attend these reviews. If you have a less serious disability such as a severe break or fracture you may be required to a review of your condition much sooner than three years. These meetings every three years or in some cases even sooner are cleverly called “continuing disability reviews” or more commonly referred to as CDRs.

Claimants are generally panicked to discover they are going to have to go before another board just to continue their benefits. You were probably denied several times before you hired an attorney, you finally hired an attorney and subsequently awarded benefits and now you have to be reviewed every three years. I bet you are thinking that it took a long time to receive these benefits and now they are just going to be taken away and you are going to have to go through the whole process again. Well I have good news, the vast majority of CDRs find the claimant disabled and benefits will continue.

If you are one of the slim few that actually does find themselves no longer disabled at your CDR, you benefits will continue in most cases for two more months after you were sent the notice of cessation. The worst thing you can do is nothing. You must respond to the notice and you must do so quickly. The SSA requires quick turnaround on the cessation notice they send. You must let the SSA know quickly of your intentions to get a reconsideration hearing. If you do find yourself in this situation do not delay in contacting the social security disability attorney you retained to receive your SSDI and SSI benefits and make them aware of the situation you are facing.

Many SSDI and SSI claimants are concerned with how they will pay a social security disability attorney to represent them throughout their case. The good news is this should not be a concern to you. While attorneys generally require retainer fees and upfront charges, social security disability attorneys generally do not require fees up front.

Social security disability attorneys generally work on a contingency fee basis. In essence the attorney will receive his fee only when you begin to receive benefits. So does this mean if you retain a social security disability attorney to handle your SSDI or SSI case that he will receive money from what you receive each month from here on out? The answer to this question is an emphatic NO! Social security disability attorney fees are regulated by the social security administration (SSA). The majority of attorneys that represent SSDI and SSI claimants work from the fee agreement process. Your social security disability attorney will be paid 25% or $5300, whichever is less, of your past due benefits. For example if you were disabled 4 years ago, and you are just now awarded benefits for your disability, your attorney will only receive 25% or $5300 whichever is less of the 4 years you should have been receiving benefits. With that said, your attorney’s fees will not be paid by money you receive now that you have been awarded benefits, rather your attorney will be paid from money owed to you from the past. While every social security disability attorney does their fees differently, this is the general structure of the majority of attorneys who practice social security disability.

If you do not have to have an attorney I bet you are thinking of having a go at it on your own. In theory this sounds like a good way to save some money, but statistically this is not the best of ideas. Claimants who are represented by counsel have a higher chance of success than those that try to tackle the social security system on their own. It is not even close. If you have not retained a qualified social security disability attorney you may want to schedule an appointment just to talk to one. The piece of mind you will have after putting your case in capable hands is worth every penny your attorney will receive.

The administrative law judge (ALJ) is both judge and jury at a social security disability hearing. In that, the ALJ controls the hearing and will also provide the outcome of your SSDI or SSI claim.

SSDI and SSI hearings are not like anything you would see on television. Every ALJ has a different way of running his or her hearings. One glaring difference between what you see on television and a SSDI or SSI hearing is the ALJ’s ability to accept evidence that would otherwise be inadmissible in a court of law. In other words, your social security disability attorney is not going to be jumping out of his chair objecting to things that are presented at your SSDI or SSI hearing. Why? There are relatively no objections in a SSDI or SSI hearing. The ALJ weighs the credibility of the evidence and makes his decisions notwithstanding the admissibility of the information presented. The ALJ’s job is to conduct your hearing. He makes the rules and also decides the case. The ALJ will look into all the issues of your case, examine your demeanor in the case, accept facts as true or not true, and will accept or reject the testimony of the witnesses in the hearing. The ALJ will review your case de novo. This is a fancy term, but easy to understand. The judge is going to take a fresh look at you SSDI or SSI case. He is not associated with the agency that previously denied your claim that got you to this point. The judge is required to go into the hearing without prejudice of the fact that you have been previously denied.

It is plain to see the ALJ has a significant amount of power. It is important to remember that this is not an adversarial process. Therefore you should show the ALJ respect and be as polite as possible. Your social security disability lawyer will instruct you further on how you should act, dress, and what you should say during your hearing. If you do not have a representative at this point, you should look into employing counsel for your hearing before the ALJ.

A SSDI or SSI hearing before the administrative law judge (ALJ) is usually brief and non confrontational. There is not going to be an attorney for the government present. The only people that will be present is the ALJ, you social security disability attorney and possibly a medical expert (ME) and a vocational expert (VE) depending on the complexity of your SSDI or SSI case. While all hearings are not the same, there are certain aspects that are common in the majority of SSDI and SSI claims. Below is an example of what you may experience at your SSDI or SSI hearing before the ALJ.

The ALJ often starts with an opening statement. He or she will describe what will happen in the hearing and answer any questions you may have, although your social security disability attorney should have you completely prepared for your hearing. The hearing will be under oath and it will be recorded. The judge will look at the history of the case, the issues of the case will be touched upon, and any exhibits will be introduced and then any objections to those exhibits will be entertained.

Typically the claimant is questioned first. Sometimes this is done by the ALJ or your social security disability attorney will be asked to develop the questioning. If there are medical experts and vocational experts they will be questioned last. The ALJ typically asks the ME and VE questions and then your attorney will be allowed to cross examine those witnesses. Remember this is not court. None of the participants in your hearing are there to intimidate you or scare you in any way.

Closing statements will then be given if your social security disability attorney finds it necessary. As I mentioned before, every SSDI and SSI hearing is different, but they all follow a general pattern.

The information covered will be exactly what you think would be covered. Your social security disability lawyer will let you know of any problem areas with your case and will certainly focus on the positives of your SSDI or SSI claim. If you do not have counsel at this stage in your claim, you may want to entertain the idea of hiring an experienced social security disability attorney.

Just because you go back to work does not mean your benefits will end. You should make the social security administration (SSA) aware of the fact that you want to go back to work. If you are thinking of going back to work, you should discuss the implications with a social security disability attorney or your representative.

The first nine months of a claimant going back to work is a “trial period” according to the social security administration (SSA). In any month in which you earn over a specified amount that will be one of the months counted toward your nine months in the trial period. The months do not have to be concurrent either. Any month you work and earn more than a specified amount in a 5 year period counts as one month of your nine months in the trial period.

After your nine month trial period, if you make more than the substantial gainful activity level (SGA) then there is a good chance your benefits will no longer continue. Your benefits will continue for three more months after your trial period and then if you are still above the SGA level then your benefits will stop. Do they stop forever? Not necessarily. If the social security administration (SSA) finds that you have medically improved then they may stop paying your disability benefits, but just because you go back to work does not mean you are trying to tell the SSA that you are no longer disabled, on the contrary they will assume you are disabled notwithstanding medical improvement.

Note that this post is aimed at those claimants receiving SSDI, and not SSI. If you recall SSI is based on your income and your resources. There is no nine month trial period in SSI like SSDI. As your income goes up your SSI benefits can and often do go down.

This is often a tough issue to deal with for many claimants receiving either SSDI or SSI benefits. While going back to work is honorable and for most people desirable, if going back to work means your quality of life will suffer, you need to ask yourself if it is really worth the effort? This question often requires serious introspection and long talks with family and friends. Do not go back to work because you feel guilty. Go back to work because you feel good enough and that you can do the job well despite your disability.

If you have not began the process for applying for your disability benefits think about the following factors.

Do you have time to dedicate to representing yourself efficiently? If not, an authorized representative will have time to adequately represent you, escort you or attend without you to proceedings associated with your case.

Are you capable of representing yourself, is your disability causing you to be unable to represent your case satisfactorily? If you are not capable for any reason having representation is the direction to take. It is also a good choice if you have filed and have been denied your claim.