The slight increase in the amount of Social Security disability and retirement checks is not the only change in 2017 for Social Security beneficiaries. These are a few of the new Social Security changes for the new year:
A modest increase in monthly payments due to the annual cost-of-living adjustment.
Social Security has two ways to meet their disability standard: meet the pre-established Listings of Impairments or show that the overall functioning keeps you from working full time. (See Blog post on Listings) On January 17, 2017, new rules regarding the mental health Listings of Impairments go into effect.
It is important for individuals applying for disability benefits with SSA to consider whether they should claim disability when their health first caused them to stop work; and not the date when they last made work attempts lasting a few months or less.
Clients are frequently confused about the role that the Vocational Expert (VE) plays at a hearing and even more confused by the examination of and the testimony of the VE. Essentially, the role of the VE at the hearing is to assist the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) in clarifying the claimant’s past work and in identifying any other work that the claimant can perform in the national economy.
The Social Security Administration has issued its first updated rules since 1985 for evaluating neurological conditions under Listing 11.00, including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy. These revisions will be in effect for five years. The listings address only neurological disorders and complications from those disorders, even if they impact other bodily systems or mental health.
This month marks the 60th anniversary of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. SSDI has been a salvation for millions of people with long-term and severe disabilities and illnesses. The program, signed into law by President Eisenhower on August 1, 1956, amended the Social Security Act (SSA) to provide economic security to disabled workers and disabled children of retired or deceased workers, just as the SSA provides retirees with protection from impoverishment in old age.
At disability hearings, the Social Security judge will evaluate whether your physical and mental impairments prevent you from performing the work you have done in the past 15 years. On June 7, 2016; the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in Stacy v. Colvin upheld the rule that Social Security cannot use the least demanding aspect of your past work to classify the difficulty level of the job.
In the last year, SSA, with direction and funding by Congress, has initiated a more aggressive campaign to review and potentially terminate disability status, benefits and Medicare to tens of thousands of people. At a meeting with Administrative Law Judges locally, it was estimated that as many as 35 to 40 percent of the cases being appealed in 2016 to area SSA hearing offices will be disability cessation appeals, rather than the typical “initial entitlement” cases.
A federal appeals court recently issued a decision containing good news for Social Security disability claimants residing in California, Nevada, Hawaii, and the other states within the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Court determined that when Social Security disability judges decide that a claimant’s testimony at the hearing level is not entirely credible, they must provide “specific, clear, and convincing” reasons for rejecting the testimony, and cite to medical evidence in the record that contradicts the claimant’s testimony.
Average Wait Time Until a Hearing is Held (as of April 2016)
The average waiting time for a Social Security Disability hearing has increased significantly this year. The chart below shows the average wait time – in months – between the date a hearing is requested and the date a hearing is held for the hearing offices in Northern California, Reno and Honolulu.
