The Road To A Successful Disability Claim

If you are thinking about filing for disability, then there are several things that you will need to do. Furthermore, you will need to meet some specific criteria, pertaining both to you and your injury. To help you get started, here is a rough outline of the road ahead:

What are the criteria for filing?

At a bare minimum, you need to be older than 18, not currently collecting your own Social Security benefits, and unable to work. The last one is often the most contentious, since it is a bit subjective in nature. To prove that you are unable to work, you are going to need some medical evidence and the opinion of a professional health care provider, stating that you cannot work. On top of that, your injury must be severe enough that it will last more than 12 months. There is a key exception to this, which is when your injury will result in your death.

In most cases, you also need to meet a minimum work credit requirement. In essence, this means that you need to have worked for a certain number of years in order draw from the Social Security pool. 

What do you need in order to file?

There is a basic list of documents and information that you will need to collect in order to build your case. You'll need basic identification information, such as your SSN, any information about your health care since the injury, and some basic tax information. Once you have gathered this information, you can apply online.

What happens if your application is denied?

If your claim is unsuccessful, then you have two options. You can either appeal the decision now or wait 60 days and file again.

Appealing is a good choice if you found evidence to support your claim since you filed, since you can add new documents to your claim. They will be examined in order to determine whether or not the rejection should be reversed. On the other hand, you don't necessarily want to appeal if you haven't found new evidence to back you up, since it will likely result in the same decision as before.

Waiting out the 60 days and then filing again can be a good idea, especially if you feel that you poorly constructed your claim the first time around. You might want to add certain documents or remove others when it comes to reapplying, which could result in a more compelling claim. For assistance, talk to a disability claims lawyer like Bruce K Billman.


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