Our law office represents a lot of clients who used to receive Social Security disability payments, but for some reason are no longer found disabled by Social Security. This can and does happen and those who are currently receiving Social Security disability should know that Social Security may check-up with you in a few years to determine whether you are still disabled.
The process for reviewing Social Security disability recipients is known as a Continuing Disability Review.
Social Security states that the “Social Security Administration reviews disability cases periodically if the person with a disability still meets SSA disability rules.” A CDR that examines whether a Social Security disability recipient has shown medical improvement to a degree that benefits are no longer appropriate, are broken down into three categories including:
- A recipient where medical improvement is expected (CDR is done one to two years after the disability approval).
- A recipient where medical improvement is possible (CDR is done three to five years after the disability approval).
- A recipient where medical improvement is NOT expected (CDR is done five to seven years after the disability approval).
Some Social Security recipients, who’ve been collecting payments for years, may report that Social Security has never done a CDR. This is quite possible because the CDR backlog at Social Security has been increasing since 2002, but that could change.
In 2012 Congress supplied $1.4 billion to Social Security for “integrity funding.” Most of this money is expected to fund the 1.5 million CDR claims that are currently backlogged.
Social Security recipients who are under the age of 50 and whose disabilities have been identified for either “expected” or “possible” improvement face the greatest chance of being selected for a full medical review. If a recipient’s case was chosen for a CDR and Social Security determined that recipient is no longer disabled, the recipient will receive a termination of benefits notice. The recipient will have 15 days to appeal the decision and would be able to continue to collect benefits while the decision is made on the appeal.
To learn more about the CDR process click here.
