SSDI and SSI provide different medical benefits:

• Supplemental Security Income provides Medicaid benefits which can pay for treatment, specialists and surgeries.
• Social Security disability insurance provides Medicare benefits, including Medicare Part D, which pays for prescription drugs.

If you get both SSDI and SSI, you may be able to get both Medicare and Medicaid.

Getting both SSDI and SSI is also helpful in mitigating the 5 month waiting period in SSDI cases. While you may not be able to get your Disability Insurance during the first 5 months, you may still be able to get SSI benefits during that time.

Keep in mind that this requires the alleged onset date to be the same as the protected filing date because of the limits on back benefits in SSI cases.

If you apply for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits (SSDI or DIB), you may be surprised that Social Security keeps the first 5 months of back benefits.

This is referred to as the “5 month waiting period.”

If you awarded benefits back to January 1st, Social Security actually keeps the benefits for January, February, March… all the way through May.  Your disability insurance benefits will start in June.  

What?!?!  But, it is my money!

I know! But, that is how the system works!

However, there is an exception to the 5 month waiting period.

Bear with me while I go over some basics:  Disability Insurance benefits can only be paid 12 months prior to the Protected Filing Date (PFD). 

If your PFD is January 2009, at most you can get benefits back to January 2008. If your Alleged Onset Date (AOD) is January 2008, Social Security applies the 5 month waiting period (keeping your benefits for January through May) and your benefits begin to paid as of June 2008.  

Here is the exception to the 5 month waiting period: if your Alleged Onset Date (AOD) is 5 months or more BEFORE the 12 month maximum back payment period, you do not lose 5 months of benefits?

What? Go over that part again.

Let me put it another way. If your Alleged Onset Date is 17 (or more) months before the protected filing date (PFD), you are eligible to get the maximum 12 months of back benefits prior to Protected Filing Date.

Just keep in mind that you cannot just pick a date 17 months before you applied as your Alleged Onset Date (AOD) and leave it at that.  You have to prove you were disabled back to the Alleged Onset Date. The further back you have prove your disability, the more difficult your case becomes.

Here is a quick “Term of the Day”

Alleged Onset Date (AOD) - the Alleged Onset Date is the date your disability began. Or, the date you claim entitlement to Social Security disability benefits.

Also see, “what if the Judge wants me to change the date my disability began?“

How do unemployment insurance benefits affect a claim for Social Security disability benefits?

Receiving unemployment benefits can be a problem if you have a claim for Social Security disability insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) because you are making two inconsistent statements:

• To get unemployment benefits, you are claiming that you are able to work, but you cannot find a job.
• But, to get Social Security disability benefits, you are claiming that you cannot perform any type of work at a substantial gainful activity level (generally full time work).

So, you are saying that you are ABLE and UNABLE to work at the same time. 

In my experience, Judges do not like this and you are less likely to be found disabled under these circumstances.

I even recommend that my clients amend the Alleged Onset Date to some time after the unemployment benefits end. I do this by writing a short letter to the Judge noting that I wish to amend the alleged onset date to date “x.” Then, at the hearing, I mention the change to the alleged onset date again.

However, strictly speaking, Social Security does permit you to receive disability benefits and unemployment insurance.

The November 15, 2006 Memorandum from Chief Judge Frank Cristaudo states:

… the receipt of unemployment insurance benefits does not preclude the receipt of Social Security disability benefits. The receipt of unemployment benefits is only one of many factors that must be considered in determining whether a claimant is disabled.

…. 

Therefore, it is SSA’s position that individuals need not choose between applying for unemployment insurance and Social Security disability benefits.

However, application for unemployment benefits is evidence that the ALJ must consider together with all of the medical and other evidence.

So, applying for, or receiving, unemployment benefits does not prevent you from getting Social Security, BUT it is a factor Social Security considers in deciding your case.

I have seen Judges react badly when an individual is claiming unemployment benefits and Social Security disability at the same time. Personally, I caution against it. But, if unemployment benefits are the only way you have to make ends meet, it is not (necessarily) the end of your Social Security case.

My thanks to Maine Social Security attorney Gordon Gates for bringing the memorandum to my attention.

Updated 05/15/09.

Nate Craig of Truth of the Matter Asserted has a great article about what it means if a judge wants you to change the date you became disabled, or in Social Security parlance “amend your alleged onset date (AOD).”

Often, by the time the claimant’s hearing comes to be scheduled, the ALJ will review the file for the first time. During this review, the ALJ will determine if the onset date is established by the medical records. Most factors of a proposal to amend an onset date will be either a specific medical finding that seems to correlate with the claimant’s limitations or the claimant has earning posted to their earnings record, including unemployment benefits.

Long story short, if the Judge is asking you to amend the onset date, they essentially are going to award benefits.

Nate makes a great point, but there is one exception to this general rule of thumb: SSI cases.

In a SSI (Supplemental Security Income) case, you can only get benefits back to the Protected Filing Date (PFD), the date you requested to file an application.  However, in many SSI cases I see, people (understandably and correctly) claim that their disability began when they stopped being able to work. Normally this is months before they ever filed for Social Security. 

I regularly see Judges asking claimants to change their Alleged Onset Date (AOD) to the Protected Filing Date (PFD).  However, this is just a streamlining measure and does not necessarily mean the judge will approve the case. At least, not in my experience.

However, with this one exception, if the ALJ asks to amend the AOD to any other date, that is usually a good sign!

Read the rest of Nate’s excellent article here.  

Getting a Partly Favorable or Partially Favorable decision in a Social Security disability claim is confusing for a lot of people.  

First, lets go over what it does not mean.  Under the Social Security system, there is no partly or partially disabled. Either your impairments keep you from being able to work (and therefore disabled) or not. There is no half disabled. Disability determinations under the Social Security system are all or nothing.  Comment:  This is also one reason why it is so hard to get on Social Security.

So, the judge has to either find you disabled or not disabled.  However, even if the judge finds you disabled, the judge may not be able to give you everything you asked for.  In those cases, you get a partly favorable decision.

If you get a partly favorable decision, it usually means one of three things:

• Social Security disagrees with the date you became disabled.
• Social Security disagrees that your disability continues.
• Social Security disagrees with the beginning and/or ending dates of your disability.

Lets take these one at a time:

Social Security disagrees with the date you became disabled.

Lets say you claim your disability began on December 2003. If you kept working (at a substantial gainful activity level – i.e. full time) after December 2003, or if the medical records do not support that you were disabled back to that date, the Judge may only be able to find you disabled as of a later date. 

Social Security disagrees that your disability continues.

The judge may agree that you were disabled, but may not think that your disability continues. Using the prior example, the Judge may agree that you were disabled in 2003, but feels that your condition improved to the point that you were able to return to full time employment in June 2007. In this instance, the judge might grant you a closed period of disability, that is he may find that your disability period began in December 2003 but you were no longer disabled as of June 2007. 

Social Security disagrees with the beginning and/or ending dates of your disability.

This is the surf and turf combo of the prior two examples. The Judge may disagree with either the date your disability began or may disagree with the ending date (if you were requesting a closed period of disability). 

In any of these cases, the judge will issue a partly favorable decision.

A partly favorable decision is still a win!

But, you need to review the decision to see where the judge disagreed with you about your disability. Is the judge choosing a later disability onset date? Is the judge disagreeing that your disability continues and choosing an ending date for your disability? Or is there some combination of those options occurring.