Will Volunteer Work or Passive Income Result in a Continuing Disability Review

Jonathan
December 14, 2020
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Last month, I published a blog post entitled “How Does Disability Termination Work and am I at Risk of Losing My Benefits?” That post prompted a number of questions about post-approval activities. Are you at risk of a continuing disability review and efforts by SSA to terminate your disability benefits if you work part time after approval? What about situations where you earn passive income? How about volunteer work?

These very legitimate questions come from approved disability claimants who don’t want to sit at home doing nothing but who are rightfully concerned that their activities could jeopardize their benefits.

Here is how I would address these concerns:

The starting point for understanding when and how post-approval activities could put your disability benefits at risk is SSA’s definition of disability. In case you don’t remember, Social Security defines “disability” in terms of how your medical or mental health issues impact your capacity for simple, entry-level type of work. More specifically you were found disabled because you have a medically determinable condition that prevents you from engaging in substantial gainful activity and that has lasted or is expected to last twelve consecutive months. Continue reading →

How Does Disability Termination Work and am I at Risk of Losing my Benefits?

Jonathan
November 17, 2020
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As you probably know, Social Security uses a process called “continuing disability review” (CDR) to evaluate approved SSDI and SSI claimants for medical improvement.

If Social Security determines that your medical or mental health condition has improved to the point where you could return to work, they will move to terminate your benefits. If you receive notice of termination you have the right to appeal and eventually to appear before an administrative law judge for a determination of whether you remain disabled under SSA’s rules.

The appeal process is beyond the scope of this article but I do want to emphasize one important issue – if you do receive notice of termination you have to notify SSA within ten (10) days of that notice if you want your benefits to continue while you appeal. If you do nothing, your benefits will terminate and your appeal (which could take a year or longer) will be for the purpose of restarting benefits.

If you choose to have benefits continue, there will be no “past due benefits” so you will not be able to hire a lawyer to assist you under a contingency fee contract. If benefits are terminated, you should be able to find a lawyer to represent you under a contingency fee, but you will have no income for the next year or so. Continue reading →

Social Security Disability Intends to Cut You Off: What Should You Do?

What should you do if you receive a notice from Social Security that they have reviewed your case and determined that your medical condition has improved such that you are no longer disabled, and that your benefits will be cut off as of a certain date?

This type of termination is being processed under something called a continuing disability review (CDR) and we are seeing more and more of these CDR termination notices.

First of all, do not panic. Under Social Security’s rules you will have an opportunity to contest SSA’s termination decision. You can also choose to continue receiving your benefits while the CDR evaluation process drags on – this can take a year or longer. Continue reading →

SSA Overpayment Issues Can be Difficult to Handle

If you need a lawyer to help you with an overpayment issue, you are going to have a hard time finding help. Overpayment cases arise when Social Security discovers that they have paid you too much – sometimes for years – and now they want their money back.

In most cases, you will receive a letter that says something like this:

We are writing to give you new information about the disability/retirement/survivors benefits which you receive on this Social Security record. We have determined that you were overpaid in the amount of $30,000. Please refund this overpayment within 30 days.

An explanation of the overpayment will be included. And, to show that they have some compassion, they do include an envelope. If you do not send them the full amount due they will withhold your monthly benefit check for as many months as it takes to recover the overpayment.

Obviously if your Social Security money is your only source of income, this can be a huge problem.

An overpayment can happen for several reasons.

Perhaps you were found disabled then returned to work under the Ticket to Work or a trial work period program. Social Security may have continued to pay you disability benefits even after you returned to work.
You could be an SSI recipient whose income and resources exceeded the stingy limits of that program.
You could be a disabled widow who was receiving benefits under a deceased spouse’s earnings record and now you have remarried.
The mistake could have been on SSA’s end – they may have advised you that you were eligible for a particular type of benefit but later concluded that you were not so eligible.

Whatever the reason, it is probably a safe bet that you don’t have $10,000, $20,000 or whatever the overpayment number is claimed. What can you do? Continue reading →

Social Security Disability Again the Subject of Congressional Inquiry

CBS News reports this morning that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will begin hearings on Thursday, June 27 about the role of administrative law judges in awarding benefits.

Critics of the current disability system point to SSA’s own statistics which show that judges currently approve slightly more than half of the claims brought before them (this is down from a 60% approval rate in 2010). Claims approved at hearings were previously rejected twice by state employees called adjudicators.

Critics also claim that too many judges are approving undeserving cases simply to clear out growing backlogs – the judges complain of quotas – which may delay a hearing date for longer than 12 months.

Others contend that long term unemployed workers claim disability when their unemployment benefits run out [1. This was the premise of a controversial NPR report entitled Unfit for Work: the Startling Rise of Disability in America – see my video about this story here.] Continue reading →

New Information Available About Social Security’s Work Incentive Programs

Social Security disability programs are running out of money. As such Social Security executives are looking for ways to reduce the outflow of dollars.

One effort has been to tighten up eligibility standards. Claimant’s representatives throughout the country are reporting that ALJ approval rates are down. When cases are approved, judges are including directives in their decisions for SSA to review approved the approved claimant for medical improvement in one year or three years.

SSA has increased and will continue to increase the number of continuing disability reviews for approved claimants. For years, the CDR program was basically ignored by Social Security – as a result only a very tiny percentage of approved claimants were ever removed from the payment rolls and there was no inquiry into improved medical status. This is changing and I am starting to receive calls from my old clients asking about these continuing reviews. Continue reading →

Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace): Friend or Foe?

Jonathan
December 31, 2009
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Back in July, I posted a blog about how Facebook can potentially damage your Social Security Disability claim if information contained in your profile contradicts your disability claim and somehow gets in the wrong hands. But since there are many social media sites out there, I would like to elaborate on this topic so as to provide more comprehensive advice on the topic of whether social media is a friend or foe.

Never before in the history of technology has there been such an array of sources available for an individual to stay in contact with friends and family far and near. One feature of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook that attracts millions of users per day is their short learning curve. The simplicity of these sites coupled with the fact that these mediums are free to the public attracts record amounts of new signees daily, and there appears to be no signs of a recession in sight. Although these type mediums are great tools in which to stay in contact or reunite with high school friends and distant family, a danger lurks within, which most users are either not aware of or simply take for granted. A mistake concerning privacy control on either of these social network sites could be the deciding factor on whether a disability applicant will receive benefits or not.

Facebook, Twitter and MySpace share the same premise for social contact; however, these social forums differ in their rules and regulations. Most of these sites are in real-time with postings denoting both a date and time for each post. For instance, the popular sites of Facebook and MySpace provide its users with the ability to post an indefinite supply of pictures and comments to a user’s network or followers, while its rival, Twitter is limited to micro blogs, those postings confined to only 140 characters. Creating messages under such a restricted limit often causes posts of only quick thoughts. Although most Twitter users voice frustration on being restricted to the mere 140 characters (spaces included), 140 characters unwisely utilized by “Jane Doe,” the social security applicant, could lead to irreparable harm and the demise of her disability application. To show how a simple post on Twitter can go from fun to disaster with the click of button (less than two seconds), let us take a brief look at a sample tweet. “Went on our family vacation, enjoyed synchronized swimming class at the hotel’s pool and walking around Disney World. Great time!” Although not a proper sentence, common to the Twitter world, this 116 character long tweet is the precursor for an impending disaster. Yes, as a post, it sufficiently allowed followers to learn and have a glimpse of her recent travel; in the social security world, however, it could be considered a costly mistake. Continue reading →

Approved Claimant Returns to Work – Are there any Defenses to a Continuing Disability Review or Termination Action by SSA

How should you prepare for a Continuing Disability Review (CDR) or notice of proposed termination? It depends on how vulnerable you are to losing. I received the following question from one of my readers:

I received a letter from SSA saying that they are reviewing my current SSDI benefit and possible to end my benefits due to substantial work between 2004 and now. I would like to have your advisement how I should handle this and what options I can do to keep my SSDI benefits. I only have Medicare insurance and living with AIDS. Also, I am deaf.

My response: Social Security is saying that you engaged in “substantial activity” from 2004 to the present. “Substantial activity” is a term of art and refers to activity that is work or work like activity. Substantial activity can be work for pay, volunteer work, school or other similar activites.

In a CDR context, Social Security is most likely looking at your earnings record. As you know, when you work your employer files copies of all W-2’s and 1099’s generated on behalf of employees. If you were working and your employer was withholding taxes as the law requires there is a written record of your earnings.

I have posted a table on this blog setting out what you can earn and still fall below SGA (substantial gainful activity). Social Security will look at your earnings month by month to calculate how many months you exceeded SGA. You could, in theory, could be asked to repay SSA for each month that you received earnings over SGA and also collected SSDI. Continue reading →

Are Claimants Required to Submit Unhelpful Medical Records?

There is no such thing as the “perfect” case. Even the most deserving claimants may end up with a doctor who they don’t like or with whom they do not get along. This is especially true in “pain” cases when narcotic medicines may be prescribed. There are also doctors out there who do not believe in the concept of disability – as far as they are concerned no one is fully disabled and these doctors will not cooperate with a Social Security claimant at all (needless to say, it is helpful if you discover this trait in your treating doctors early enough in your case to find another doctor!).

What about unhelpful medical records? I see this frequently in cases where there was a workers’ compensation case. “Company doctors” often minimize symptoms and generate records indicating that a claimant has the capacity to return to work. Other times I see unhelpful records in cases where my client just did not “click” with his or her physician or psychiatrist.

One of my blog readers wrote me to ask about his obligation to submit unhelpful records in the context of a continuing disability review:

I have been on SSI for 8 years for mental illness. One recently former psychologist would say I was never disabled while my psychiatrist, and my new psychiatrist (the present one is moving) say I am disabled. Continue reading →

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