The Republicans in Congress have made several attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, but all attempts have failed after a few Republicans defected in approving repeal efforts after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that repeal of the law would result in tens of millions of Americans losing healthcare coverage…. Read more »
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The Earnings Test Under Social Security Rules
Workers who pay into Social Security earn credits quarterly that qualify them for certain types of Social Security payments, whether they be disability or retirement benefits, but few people understand what sorts of income actually earn them credits. Here is some information about what types of income qualify under the earnings test. What types of… Read more »
New Conditions Added To Compassionate Allowance Program
Social Security has added three new conditions to its Compassionate Allowance list, which are impairments the “clearly” meet Social Security’s standard for disability under the law. These new conditions are: CACH – Vanishing White Matter Disease-Infantile and Childhood Onset forms; Congenital Myotonic Dystrophy; Kleefstra Syndrom. According to Social Security, Compassionate Allowances are a way to… Read more »
The Technical Rules of Social Security Disability
It is unfortunate, but a common scenario with many Social Security disability applicants is that they find out that they are ineligible to receive Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) before a claim really gets going, no matter why types of potential disabilities an applicant has. Before an applicant can even get the Social Security Administration to… Read more »
Administrative Law Judge Qualifications
The majority of applicants who apply for Social Security disability benefits and who continue to appeal decisions by the agency to deny claims will eventually end up at a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ). Most everyone knows what a judge is and what their functions are, but typically when we think of a… Read more »
Surviving Financially Until the ALJ Hearing
Among the questions asked to Greeman Toomey attorneys and staff, the most frequent one is “how am I supposed to survive until my hearing?” Unfortunately the average wait time for a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge is 12-15 months from the date of your appeal. If a claimant receives unfavorable decisions at the Initial… Read more »
How will becoming incarcerated effect my benefits?
Incarceration may impact your eligibility for benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA). This depends on how long you are incarcerated for and what type of benefits you receive. If you are receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments and you are in jail or prison, your payments will be suspended after you have been incarcerated… Read more »
Timeliness and Quality of the Disability Process
Social Security has an $800 billion annual budget, and is one of the government’s largest expenses. Best known for sending monthly payments to retired Americans, SSA also pays disability claims for 18 million people each year, with numbers increasing due to the recession. The Social Security Administration currently faces one of the largest backlogs in the… Read more »
Hearing Wait Times Vary Depending on Hearings Office
For those who do not know, the Social Security disability process is a long, winding road that can take many applicants the better part of two years to navigate until a final decision is reached. There are a variety of reasons for this, but probably the biggest reason is it takes, on average, 12-15 months,… Read more »
Pre-hearing And Post-hearing Conferences
This item recently came up in our office for a client we were representing. The Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in one of the cases we were representing called a pre-hearing conference prior to the hearing on a disability case. This is a rare occurrence because Social Security does not call pre-hearing or post-hearing conferences very… Read more »
