Social Security Disability Waiting Period

Dependents Of Disabled Workers Are Exempt

There is no waiting period for people who are applying as dependents of disabled workers. Dependents include current and former spouses and children. For spouses to qualify, they must be older than 62 and caring for a child who is younger than 16. Additionally, the child must qualify for disability benefits. Ex-spouses must be single, older than 62, and eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance. Minor children must be single and younger than 18 years of age. Children include biological, adopted, and step-children. Adult children are also eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance.

To be eligible, an adult child must have a parent that receives Social Security Disability Insurance. Additionally, the adult child must be suffering from a disability that began affecting him or her before the claimant turned 22 or a full-time high school student who is younger than 19. An adult child can receive benefits until two months after his or her 19th birthday, or until graduating from high school.

Should I Wait To Apply For Benefits Until After My Elimination Period Is Over

Absolutely not. Although five months may seem like a long time, it takes a long time for the SSA to either approve or deny the applications it receives.

In addition, many disability benefit applications take more than five months to complete. If you wait to apply until after your elimination period is finished, you could wait twice as long to receive your first disability check.

In 2017 More Than 10000 Americans Died While Waiting

Washington, D.C. Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown joined with his colleague Senator Casey to introduce the Stop the Wait Act. After waiting months to qualify for coverage through Social Security Disability Insurance , individuals with disabilities are forced to wait another five months to get a disability check and another two years to obtain health coverage through Medicare. The Stop the Wait Act would eliminate these outdated, mandatory waiting periods imposed on individuals with disabilities that can potentially further harm their health by delaying critical health care.

Social Security Disability Insurance is a lifeline for individuals who cant work because of a disability,said Senator Brown. This legislation eliminates unnecessary red tape that leads to gaps in disability insurance and healthcare coverage, and ensures Americans dont lose access to the benefits they have earned.

In 2017, more than 10,000 American died while waiting for SSDI benefits to begin. The wait times greatly affect adults with rapidly progressing diseases such as Huntingtons Disease, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other serious conditions.

• Requiring the Social Security Administration to begin payment to an individual eligible for SSDI immediately after they are determined to be eligible for the program, rather than requiring the individual to wait five months to begin receiving benefits.

• Phasing out the 24-month waiting period for Medicare disability benefits.

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Are There Exceptions To The Ssdi Five

Those who are eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits will begin receiving their monthly income from the Social Security Administration five months after their established onset date . This five month waiting period can leave a disabled individual without income for a long time, as most applicants for benefits have to quit their jobs because of their condition and/or to ensure eligibility for benefits.

Because you are likely concerned about how you will pay for bills and costs of living during the time you wait for benefits to begin, many applicants wonder whether there are any exceptions to the SSDI five-month waiting period.

Are There Exceptions to the Five-Month Waiting Period for SSDI Benefits?

There are two exceptions to the five-month waiting period before SSDI benefits can begin. The first exception is for benefits available to dependents. If you are the dependent of a disabled worker and are seeking benefits, you will not be subject to the five month waiting period. The second exception exists for people who are applying for reinstatement of Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. If you were receiving SSDI benefits and you subsequently went back to work, you will be eligible for expedited reinstatement of disability benefits. This not only means that you are not subject to the five-month waiting period, but also that you are going to be eligible for benefits without going through the entire application process again.

Medicare Coverage If You’re Disabled

We automatically enroll you in Original Medicare after you get disability benefits for two years. However, if your disability results from ALS, Medicare coverage begins sooner, generally the first month you are eligible for disability benefits.

• Medicare Part A helps pay for inpatient hospital stays, care in a skilled nursing facility, hospice care, and some home health care. The taxes you paid while you were working financed this coverage. Its provided at no cost to you.
• Medicare Part B helps pay doctors’ services, outpatient care, some medical supplies, and other preventive services. You will need to pay a monthly premium for this coverage if you want it.

Most people have both parts of Medicare. If you have questions about this coverage, you can contact Medicare toll-free at 1-800-MEDICARE to speak to a Medicare Customer Service Representative. TTY users should call 1-877-486-2048.

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Expedited Processing For Compassionate Allowances

Another exception isthe Compassionate Allowances Program. Under this program, the five-month waiting period is not waived if you are diagnosed withcertain diseases or conditions, but your application is expedited. Qualifying conditions for the program include certain brain dysfunctions, cancers, and rare diseases.

There is no formal application process for the Compassionate Allowances Program. Instead, when you submit your SSDI application, it is reviewed by the Social Security Administration to determine if it merits expedited processing. Additionally, the SSA analyzes your application to decide if it can be approved without further review. An application has a higher chance of getting expedited if it includes medical records that confirm your diagnosis.

How Back Pay Is Determined

The way back pay is distributed and the amount you receive will depend on whether you were approved for SSDI or SSI. The longer it takes to get your application approved, the more money you are likely to receive.

Since most applicants are denied at least once before obtaining disability benefits, you could be waiting several months or longer for your application to receive approval.

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You May Qualify For Legal Assistance

Applying for Social Security disability benefits is pretty confusing. If you need help, why not talk to an experienced Social Security attorney? You can get confidential answers that apply to your specific circumstances free of charge! All disability lawyers work on contingency, and they cant charge you anything unless the SSA approves you first. In fact, having a lawyer file your disability claim nearly triples your chances for benefit approval.

That means youll pay nothing to get professional help today. Already denied benefits? A lawyer can review your claim for mistakes and fix them. Each year, nearly 2 in 5 first-time claimants get denied for basic paperwork errors. This is called a technical denial. An attorney can help you avoid those mistakes, or fight to get you benefits on appeal. Lawyers wont take on your case unless they think youll win. And if you do win, youll only pay a small, one-time fee.

Ready to see if you may qualify? Click the button below to start your free online benefits evaluation now!

When Is The Waiting Period Not Required

No waiting period is required if any of the following conditionsare met:

Last Revised: Jan. 30, 2006

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No Waiting Period For Ssi

If you have been approved to receive Supplemental Security Income, you are exempt from the mandatory five-month waiting period. Unlike Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income is a means-tested benefit. SSI pays cash benefits to low-income adults who are older than 65, and people with disabilities. To qualify for SSI, an adult must have a disability that substantially impairs his or her ability to work. Children must suffer from a severe functional disability to receive SSI.

Types Of Back Payments

Back payments are paid for the months between the date you applied for disability benefits and the date you were approved for benefits. Due to the number of people that are applying for disability benefits and the time it takes to process your application, there is usually a long delay between your disability application date and approval date. But note that, for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, Social Security has a five-month waiting period, so you’re only eligible to receive back pay for any delay beyond the waiting period .

Those who get SSDI back pay will also get payments for the months between when you became disabled and when you applied for Social Security Disability benefits. These are called retroactive benefits because you can get them even before you applied. These are benefits that you would have received if you had applied for benefits earlier.

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Social Security Disabilitys Waiting Period

Youve applied for benefits. After months of submitting medical proof or, possibly, years of waiting for your disability appeal hearing, youve finally received the happy news: you are entitled to Social Security Disability Insurance benefits. Youll be receiving monthly benefit payments any day now, right?

Not so fast. If you are approved for benefits, you must wait five months for the monthly payments to begin. The first benefit payment you will receive will be sent on the sixth full month after the date that Social Security says your disability began.

There are actually two waiting periods when it comes to SSDI. The first is the period of time between when you apply for benefits and when you are ultimately approved for them. This waiting period can be extensive, especially if you, like most people, are initially denied and are forced to appeal. It can take months or years to have your disability appeal hearing and time after that for the Administrative Law Judge who oversees your hearing to make a final determination.

Social Security determines the date on which your disability began, which is referred to as your established onset date. They draw this conclusion based on the medical records that you submit with your claim.

Need Help?

How Much You Will Receive

The amount of your monthly SSDI benefit is based on your lifetime average earnings covered by Social Security.

If you don’t already have an estimate, you can get your Social Security Statement online with your personal mySocial Security account or use our Benefit Calculators to determine how much you could get if you became disabled right now.

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Some Ssdi Beneficiaries Die Within 24

According to research based on new SSDI beneficiaries in 1995 who qualified upon their own work record, 11.8% died within the waiting period, 2.1% recovered, and 86.1% became entitled to Medicare. The study estimated hypothetical Medicare costs for the first 24 months of SSDI entitlement to be $10,055 in 2000 dollars per person. Costs varied substantially by diagnostic group and by whether the person died or recovered during the waiting period. On average, beneficiaries who died during the waiting period were estimated to cost $25,864, whereas those who recovered were estimated to cost $1,506.9

Can I Receive Back Pay After Being Approved For Ssdi Or Ssi Benefits

Posted on behalf of Sigman, Janssen, Sewall, Pitz & Burkham on in Social Security

Once you are approved for Social Security Disability Insurance or Supplemental Security Income , you may be owed more than your monthly disability benefit. Back pay is compensation for the months between the filing of your application and the date your application was approved.

The amount you may receive will depend on several factors, such as the type of disability benefits you have been awarded and the amount of time you waited for approval.

To find out if you may be eligible for back pay, reach out to our legal team at Sigman Janssen. We are prepared to review your situation and explain your available legal options in a risk-free consultation.

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Changes To The Waiting Period Criteria

The Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980, P.L. 96-265, permitted an individual becoming re-entitled to SSDI benefits to count the months of the earlier spell of disability in satisfying the 24-month waiting period if the spell occurred within the previous five years or seven years for disabled widows and those who were disabled since childhood. The amendments also provided that if an individual was in a trial work period after the termination of the SSDI benefits, and had not completed the 24-month waiting period, the months of the trial work period could count toward satisfying the required waiting period for Medicare eligibility.

Effective October 1, 2000, the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, P.L. 106-170, extended Medicare Part A coverage to certain working former SSDI beneficiaries for a total of 8.5 years.

When Can I Receive Back Pay

SSDI benefits become available to applicants as soon as the waiting period is done, as long as they are still disabled and already approved. Some claims, however, take longer than 5 months to be processed and approved.

If your claim is approved sometime after the waiting period is done, you may be eligible to receive back pay for the time you were waiting for your application to be approved. For example, an applicant whose claim was approved 10 months after their EOD would be eligible to receive 5 months of back pay: 10 months minus the 5 month waiting period. 12 months is the maximum amount of back pay that can be given out. Back payments of benefits are paid in a lump sum as soon as the applicant is eligible to receive them. Attorney or advocate fees are generally taken out of back pay.

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Disability Benefit Processing Times In Michigan Among The Worst

The Social Security Administration reports that, on average, every SSD applicant will face a minimum five month waiting period from the date a disability is established before receiving benefits. The reason for this delay is that SSD benefits are only available for long-term disabilities the SSA avoids giving payouts to individuals who are only temporarily disabled by uniformly withholding benefits until a disability has persisted continuously for five full months. There are, however, exceptions to this that allow for payment of benefits sooner your Michigan SSD attorney can explain any exceptions that may concern your application for benefits.

Many applicants, however, have had to wait far longer than five months. Many claims that are eventually approved are denied at the initial application stage, extending the time from application for benefits to receipt of payment. Most applicants wisely choose to appeal an initial denial of SSD benefits a high proportion of those initially denied eventually will receive benefits.

Some areas have seen painfully lengthy wait times: a number of Michigan residents in recent years did not see benefits kick in until five years after applying. But, the Social Security Administration has been working to combat drawn-out waiting periods, opening new offices in especially stressed areas like Michigan and working overtime to tackle the extensive backlog of cases.

The 5 Month Waiting Period: Why It Exists And How It May Impact Your Ssdi Claim

by Morgan Zavadil | Sep 29, 2021 | Social Security Disability Process And Benefits |

Social Security has established a five-month waiting period for receiving benefits from the time you were disabled. The Social Security Administration established this waiting period to ensure that benefits would not be paid to people with short-term disabilities. Essentially, Social Security wanted to ensure that an individual was disabled before paying them. However, many people argue the five-month waiting period is outdated and unfair. Specifically, during this waiting period the disabled person is either not working or earning less than the substantial gainful employment. However, as of the date this blog post is being written the five-month waiting period still exists and has yet to be changed.

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Why Is There A Waiting Period For Social Security Disability Benefits

The five-month elimination period is in place because the SSA only provides Social Security Disability Insurance benefits to people with long-term disabilities.

Rather than paying you disability benefits to later find out you were suffering from a short-term disability, the SSA will simply wait five months and see.

If your illness or injury goes away goes away before the five-month elimination period, you are ineligible for disability benefits.

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Congressional Reasoning For The 24

In 1971, the House Committee on Ways and Means Report recommended extending Medicare protection to the disabled and stated that the Committee felt it was “imperative to proceed on a conservative basis.” The report stated that the 24-month waiting period was intended to

… help keep the costs within reasonable bounds, avoid overlapping private health insurance protection, particularly where a disabled worker may continue his membership in a group insurance plan for a period of time following the onset of his disability and minimize certain administrative problems that might otherwise arise…. Moreover, this approach provides assurance that the protection will be available to those whose disabilities have proven to be severe and long lasting.4

A similar statement was included in the report to the Senate from the Committee on Finance.

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