Legal News

According to the Social Security Administration if you are a U.S. citizen, you can travel to or live in most foreign countries without impacting your Social Security benefits, but there are a few countries where they cannot send Social Security payments. These countries include: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cuba, Cambodia, Georgia, Kazakstan, Kyrgzstan, Moldova, North Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. If you plan to travel or live outside the United States for up to 30 days or more, be sure to provide Social Security with the name of the country/countries you plan to visit and the date you expect to leave the United States. Social Security will send you a letter on “special reporting instructions” and tell you how to arrange for your benefits to continue while you are abroad. In addition, do not forget to tell Social Security when you return to the United States. If you are not a United States citizen, the law requires Social Security to stop payments after you have been outside the United States for six consecutive calendar months unless you meet one of several exceptions that allow your benefits to continue.  Most of these exceptions are based on your country of citizenship, residence or on other conditions. If you are planning to be outside the United States for six consecutive calendar months or more, you can find out if you can receive your Social Security payment outside the United States. Social Security offers a “payments abroad screening tool” online. This is a tool to help you find out if you can continue to receive your Title II Social Security payments if you are outside the United States or are planning to go outside the United States. This tool can also help you find out if your retirement, disability, or survivor’s payments will continue indefinitely, stop after six consecutive calendar months, or if certain country specific restrictions apply. Be sure to research and contact Social Security to inquire more information about the country you plan to visit to obtain more detailed information.

  Three plaintiffs who were denied Social Security disability benefits filed a class action lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco against the Social Security Administration over Social Security’s use of a “disqualified” doctor. The suit suggested that the reports this doctor wrote to Social Security were “deficient” and referenced tests that were never performed and were inconsistent with the claimant’s medical records. In addition, it was referenced that these exams performed by the doctor lasted 10 minutes or less. Social Security uses select doctors for Consultative Exams (CEs) to perform examinations on Social Security disability applicants. These exams are ordered when a disability examiner believes there is not enough evidence to decide whether an applicant is disabled. Many times the CE reports doctors complete play a crucial role in whether someone is found disabled and entitled to benefits. The lawsuit seeks to require Social Security to re-open all prior determinations that terminated or denied disability benefits and relied on a CE performed by this particular doctor. Whether or not this lawsuit is successful, it highlights the fact that many times CEs work against an applicant’s favor. Our law office has been told by clients that many times exams take 10 minutes or less, no tests are performed and claimants are whisked out the door of the doctor’s office before they knew what happened. The best defense of this is for claimants to treat with their own medical professionals, so there is ample medical evidence in a claimant’s file. Social Security is supposed to rely more on medical evidence produced by a claimant’s own medical doctors than on a CE exam, which makes sense. Who knows a claimant’s limitations better than the claimant’s own doctor? To read more details about the federal lawsuit filed against the Social Security Administration in San Francisco click here.

Sometimes it is difficult for disability claimants to understand that Social Security has different types of disability programs available. A disability claim generally consists of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and or Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Although these are both types of Social Security disability programs it’s important to understand that two different people are in charge of processing each claim, which can lead to some confusion. After Social Security determines that a claimant is indeed disabled claim’s representatives at the agency have to determine how much money a claimant will receive in past-due benefits and monthly benefits. Benefits for SSDI are calculated based on a claimant’s career earnings and SSI benefits are based on a claimant’s income and asset allocation. Not everyone will qualify for SSI benefits if there is not a financial need found, but some people can qualify for both types of benefits. Social Security will notify claimants if they qualify for both programs and eventually award letters are issued separately. A claimant may receive one of the program’s award letters in the mail and become upset because it does not indicate what they thought they would be receiving in benefits, which happens quite regularly. As a Social Security disability law firm we represent clients where this is all too familiar. We inform clients facing this situation to wait a little bit longer because they are indeed qualified for one of the other two programs, but the award letter has yet to be issued. Although two different Social Security employees work on issuing the two separate award letters, it would make things less confusing to claimants if they would issue the award letters at the same time, but as is the case sometimes with Social Security the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Everyone who has filed a request for hearing in a Social Security disability case receives, or should receive, a letter from the Social Security Administration indicating Social Security has received the request, but also asking the claimant to submit medical records because there is a possibility that a favorable decision could be made without going to a hearing. Every single one of our clients receives this letter and clients many times expect us to begin collecting medical records many months in advance of a hearing date because of this letter. This is unfortunate because it gives claimants a false hope. The fact is even if we began to collect and submit records for our clients at this stage of the process it is highly likely no one would look at these records. Once a request for hearing is filed a disability decision will almost always be made at the hearing, which Social Security does not schedule until further along in the process. There are always exceptions to every rule, so we can’t say Social Security never makes a favorable decision after the hearing request and before the date of the hearing, but it is extremely rare. In those situations, typically a senior attorney advisor will contact the claimant’s representative and request specific records to determine if a favorable decision can be made in an effort to limit the hearing calendar. These senior attorney advisors have the ability, through the blessing of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), to grant favorable decisions depending on the date someone became disabled and what the medical records show. The letter Social Security sends out asking for medical records before the hearing is scheduled is at the very least misleading and difficult to explain to clients. Remember, Social Security typically had two previous opportunities to make favorable decisions during the early parts of the claim, but failed to do so.

A recent Social Security Administration trustee’s report estimated that in 2017 Social Security beneficiaries, this includes those who receive retirement, disability and survivor’s benefits, can expect to see a 0.2 percent increase in their monthly payments. Obviously this is not news to jump for joy about. The only concession is that at least it will not be like 2016 where there was no increase at all. Official word of the increase should come at some point in October, but it truly is a meager increase. Consider that the average person who receives a Social Security check gets about $1,341 per month, the 0.2 percent increase would equal $2.68 more per month and a total of $32.16 extra a year. The formula Social Security uses to determine what the COLA (cost-of-living-adjustment) will be, or if there is any at all, is a calculation that was put in place back in 1972 known as the Consumer Price Index. The CPI measures price changes for common consumer goods and services and is heavily weighted toward gasoline prices. When the CPI shows that prices have gone up Social Security recipients receive a COLA increase, but when prices remain stagnate or decrease there is no increase in benefits. The problem with this formula is that gasoline prices have been decreasing and remain steady as of now, which is the major reason for no or very little COLA increase. At the same time, other prices such as clothing, housing or even prescription medications have been increasing. The main purpose of the Social Security COLA increase was to protect the buying power of beneficiaries, but the Senior Citizens League estimated that seniors have lost about 23 percent of their buying power since 2000. It is clearly time to change how COLA is calculated. To learn more click here.