Are You Receiving Your Full Benefit Package?
Many Vets Don’t Know They Can Receive Both VA Disability and Social Security Disability Benefits
Unfortunately, many veterans do not know that they can receive both service related VA disability and Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits. After an often long and exhausting fight to secure service related VA benefits, a vet may feel that they now receive everything due to them. However, by ignoring an accompanying claim for SSD benefits, a vet may miss out on an additional thousand dollars or more a month as well as a potential back check that often reaches over ten thousand dollars. This would indeed be a very expensive oversight.
In order for Social Security to accept a claim for SSD, the vet applying for Social Security must have “insured status.” Insured status means that the vet has worked and paid into Social Security long enough to now collect off their own work record. Generally speaking, insured status is achieved by working any combination of five out of the last ten years. The work need not be consecutive; any five years of work within the past ten years will result in insured status. However, insured status will eventually run out. A finding of “disabled” must be made within five years of your last day of work. This means that it is very important to file an application shortly after leaving work because of a disability. Medical records can be lost or destroyed and doctors may leave a facility, making it more difficult to prove disablity during that five-year window if the application is delayed.
A more practical reason to apply immediately after leaving work is that delaying an application can cost a vet thousands of dollars. Social Security will begin payment the sixth month after disability begins. Take for example a vet who leaves work because of disabling PTSD in January of 2007. He immediately files for and is awarded disability. In this scenario, his SSD benefits will start in July of 2007. However, assume this same vet left work in January of 2005 and didn’t get around to filing a claim for SSD until January of 2007. In this scenario, Social Security will not pay that vet back to July of 2005, the sixth month after disability began. Instead, Social Security will only pay that vet back one year from the date of application, January of 2006. Assuming a monthly rate of $1,000, this vet lost $6,000 by delaying his application with Social Security. Each additional month of delay of application after January of 2007 is another $1,000 that is forever lost to this vet.
The advice for vets is to file an application for SSD immediately upon leaving work because of a disability, even if a claim for service related VA disability is also pending. Many of the same medical records and doctor opinions can be used for both claims. An application with Social Security can be filed in person at any local district office, online at www.socialsecurity.gov, or by calling Social Security at 1-800-772-1213. Many attorneys will also assist vets in applying for SSD benefits. This service is often appreciated because an experienced attorney can help with the initial paperwork and scheduling with Social Security that can often seem overwhelming to the vet applying for benefits.
Article provided by attorney Gary W. Bimberg of Southfield, MI. Mr. Bimberg exclusively handles Social Security claims across the country. He may be reached at 1-800-675-0613 or at gbimberg@levinebenjamin.com
