Considering filing an application for Social Security disability and unsure of your monthly payment amount if approved? Each individual has a unique disability amount based on covered earnings. Your monthly disability amount depends solely on the amount of federal income taxes you have paid over your lifetime.
An important factor in determining whether you will qualify for Social Security disability benefits is your "past relevant work." You should understand how your past relevant work will affect your disability claim and why it is so important, especially if you do not qualify for disability benefits on the basis of your medical findings alone.
It is acknowledged by the Social Security Administration (SSA) that symptoms can affect and limit people differently person to person. A disability lawyer in San Jose wants to help you understand the SSA regulations in determining abilities of patients.
One factor affecting a decision in a Social Security disability case is meeting the duration requirement. According to a San Jose disability lawyer, your impairments must have lasted or be expected to last for a continuous period of 12 months, unless your impairment is expected to result in death.
There is a clear difference between being unable to work and being found "disabled" by the Social Security Administration (SSA). A San Jose disability attorney wants to help you understand how "disability" can be defined and some criteria for applying for disability benefits.
Many factors are considered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in its determination of a claimant’s disability. The medical records documenting the treatment history are examined to understand the nature of the impairment, but, as a San Jose disability attorney can explain, the age of the claimant is a critical factor in the SSA’s evaluation.
By Terry LaPorte, San Jose disability lawyer
Many medical conditions occur more frequently to workers as they age into the later part of their working years. Most people are not limited by arthritis, cardiac disease, Type II diabetes, and many other conditions until reaching their 50s and 60s.
The Social Security regulations take age into consideration by essentially requiring that younger workers under age 50 go back to school, or otherwise learn a new trade if a severe illness or injury causes them to be unable to perform the only work they had carried out.
Did you give up on an earlier application for Social Security disability benefits after it was first denied? If the answer is yes, it may be possible for your attorney under limited circumstances to reopen the earlier application, which could provide you with significant additional past-due benefits.
Your impairment must have lasted or be expected to last for a continuous period of 12 months for you to qualify for benefits. You don’t have to wait until you have been unable to work for a whole year to apply for benefits. The SSA will presume that your impairment will meet the duration requirement if it’s the type of condition that obviously will last a long time, for example a serious spinal cord injury.
To qualify for disability benefits, you must have a “medically determinable impairment” and your impairment must be “severe.” The purpose of this requirement is to eliminate frivolous cases. These are cases in which the claimant’s condition interferes with the ability to work only slightly, or in which the claimant does not have a genuine medical problem.
