SUPPLEMENTAL SECURITY INCOME (SSI) INCOME REPORTING (November 2, 2011)
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WHO REPORTS INCOME
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Ø If you receive SSI benefits, you must report any earnings from work or any other money or help that you, your spouse or children living in your household receive.
Ø If you are the representative payee for an adult who receives SSI benefits, you must report any income that the individual, his or her spouse, or children living in the recipient’s household receive.
Ø If you are the parent, stepparent, or representative payee for a child under age 18 who receives SSI benefits, you must report any income that the child, his or her parent(s), stepparent, or brother(s) or sister(s) receive.
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WHAT INCOME TO REPORT
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EARNINGS FROM WORK
ü Any jobs
ü When work starts
ü Amount of pay
ü How often paid
ü When work stops
ü Changes to your amount of pay
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OTHER MONEY OR HELP
ü Any money or help received by family members who live with the person who receives SSI
ü Type of money or help (see reverse for examples)
ü Amount of money or help
ü How often payments are received
ü When the payment or help changes or ends
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WHERE AND WHEN TO REPORT INCOME
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ü Call the Social Security toll-free number at 1-800-772-1213.
ü Your local Social Security office.
ü For the deaf or hearing-impaired, call TTY 1-800-325-0778.
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ü Report new income or any change in income as soon as it happens, but no later than the 10th day of the month following the change. For example, if work begins May 22, report immediately, but no later than June 10.
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You or a representative payee, on your behalf, must report income received by you, your spouse, and/or your child from the following sources:
· Wages – including overtime and bonuses
· Net Earnings from Self-Employment
· Federal, State or Local Help Based on Need
· Refugee Cash Help
· Temporary Help for Needy Families
· General Help
· Bureau of Indian Affairs Income
· Disaster Relief
· Military Allowance and Pay
· Military Pension
· Veterans Benefits
· Office of Personnel Management Benefits
· Private Pension
· Foreign Pension
· Black Lung Benefits
· Railroad Retirement Benefits
· Civil Service Benefits
· Unemployment Compensation
· Workers’ Compensation
· State Disability Payments
· Insurance or Annuity Payments
· Interest or Dividends
· Royalties
· Gifts
· Rental/Lease Income
· Lottery/Gambling Winnings/Prizes
· Alimony
· Child Support
· Settlements and Awards, including Court -Ordered Awards
· Proceeds of a Life Insurance Policy
· Inheritance of Cash or Property
· Social Security Benefits
· Strike Pay or Other Union Benefits
· If someone gives you food or free housing
· If someone helps pay for your food, utilities, rent, or mortgage
· Any Other Income or Help Not Mentioned
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Union Tribune Article | Social Security Reviewing Doctors guilty of Fraud? (September 13, 2011)
The 2 highest earning state civil service employees working in San Diego County made hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses last year reviewing Social Security disability claims. The 2 doctors in question are both psychiatrists. Dr. Robert Paxton made $440,068 and Dr. Kelly Loomis made $368,917. These doctors earned this money from the Social Security Administration by allegedly reviewing the medical records of disability applicants and rendering opinions as to the claimants mental functional capacity. According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Watchdog article, Dr. Paxton would have spent less than 9 minutes to review a claimant's medical records, formulate and then author his opinions. This assumes that he took only 1 week of vacation and observed normal state holidays and worked 10 hour days with no breaks. To earn $440,068 during calendar year 2010 he would have had to review more than 15,000 cases which equates to 70 cases per day. If he only worked 8 hours a day he would have spent less than 7 minutes per case. Obviously, it is impossible to review the extensive medical records that many of the claimants have often totaling more than a hundred pages and make conclusions in such a brief amount of time. It is evident that the reviews were either not done, were inadequately done, or the opinions of other doctors were simply "rubber stamped" by these doctors.
For those of us who practice in this field of law we see first hand the impact that these reviewing physicians have on our client's lives. A denial of a claim for social security disability benefits is devastating for someone who is unable to work as a result of a disability. The Social Security Administration relies heavily on the opinions from it's reviewing physicians. For these doctors to abuse the system for their own financial gain while running roughshod over the rights of the disabled is nothing but outrageous. Yet Social Security when presented with these facts simply downplayed these doctors as hard working and helping to clear out the backlog of cases. If you would like to read more about this topic, follow the link to the Union Tribune Article.
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Unemployment Benefits (August 9, 2010)
Many of our clients are collecting Unemployment Benefits while they are waiting for their Social Security Disability Hearing. The average wait for a hearing with an administrative law judge is 12 months. During that time, making ends meet can be challenging and some are able to obtain unemployment benefits to hold them over. The potential conflict is that to obtain these benefits the claimant must certify that he or she is looking for full time employment. Arguably, looking for work is not inconsistent with a social security disability application. However, the Judge may consider this to be inconsistent and use the unemployment benefits as an excuse to deny the claim. I am of the opinion that our clients need to survive during the long wait to get a hearing and if that means lawfully obtaining unemployment benefits while they wait. Recently the Chief Administrative Law Judge issued a Memorandum to administrative Judges stating "The receipt of unemployment benfits is only one of many factors that must be considered in determining whether the claimant is disabled."
In 1999 the Supreme Court held that a claim for social security disability benefits is often consistent with a claim for relief under the Americans with Disabilities Act even though there must be an ability to work in order to obtain relief under the ADA. The Supreme Court noted that under the presumptions emnbodied in our five step sequential evaluation process, a person can qualify for Social Security disability benefits even though he or she remains capable of performing some work. Similar logic applies to applications for unemployment benefits. For this reason, the memorandum from the Chief Administrative Law Judge states, "Accordingly, ALJs should look at the totality of the circumstances in determining the significance of the application for unemployment benefits and related efforts to obtain employment".
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Reapplying for Social Security Disability Benefits (July 28, 2011)
In the event that a claimant receives an unfavorable decision at a hearing with an administrative law judge, the question becomes what does the claimant do next. Typically, an appeal is filed with the Appeals Council which is the branch of the Social Security Administration that reviews the judges' decisions. In addition to filing an Appeal, the claimant had been able to file a new application for disability benefits with the SSA. The Social Security Administration has today revised their policy for filing subsequent applications where a prior application is pending at the Appeals Council. The SSA "will no longer process a subsequent disability claim if you already have a claim under the same title and of the same type pending in our administrative review process". The revision in policy does not apply to cases where an appeal is pending in Federal District Court. Nor does it apply to subsequent applications that were filed prior to today.
Key Provisions:
1. A claimant who wants to file a new disability claim under the same title and of the same benefit type will have to choose between continuing with the administrative appeal or declining to pursue administrative rev iew and filing a new application.
2. If the choice is to pursue the administrative appeal, SSA will not accept the subsequent application.
3. Additional evidence reporting a new medical condition or a worsening of existing medical conditions can still be submitted.
4. If the claimant decides to pursue the first claim and it is pending at the Appeals Council and additional evidence is submitted, the Appeals Council will first determine if the evidence relates to the period on or before the date of the ALJ hearing decision. If it does, the Appeals Council will consider this new evidence with the rest of the record.
5. If the new and material evidence relates to the period on or before the date of the hearing decision and "shows a critical or disabling condition, the Appeals Council will expedite its review of the pending claim".
6. If the evidence relates to the period after the date of the ALJ decision, the Appeals Council will return the evidence to the claimant.
7. If the claimant decides not to pursue further review of the pending claim, a new application can be filed. However, the claimant will need to withdraw the request for review.
Obviously this change in policy is terrible for unsuccessful claimants who have legitimate issues to raise on Appeal and who wish to file a new claim that may be approved due to a worsening of their condition. They are now forced to chose between reapply and giving up their claim for their retroactive benefits from their prior case or waiting 6 to 9 months for the Appeals Council to act on their appeal. If the Appeal is unsuccessful, the new application will revert back to the same date that the Appeal was filed. A link to the ruling is at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-07-28/pdf/2011-19103.pdf
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ALJ Approves 100% of cases -- May 20, 2011
The Wall Street Journal today reported that Social Security Administration investigators have gone to Huntington to look into Judge David Daugherty. The Inspector General for the Social Security Administration will now be looking into the disability benefit approval rates from Social Security Administrative Law Judge David B. Daugherty who is based in Huntington. The review follows an article published in Thursday's Wall Street Journal that raised questions about the rates at which Judge Daugherty approves appeals for disability benefits. In the first six months of the 2010-2011 Fiscal Year, Judge Daugherty approved every one of the 729 appeals that he has considered in an area covering parts of West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky."What was really different about this judge is, not only that he is at 100% which is very unusual to not have denied a single case this Fiscal Year, but he also did the most cases of any judge in a single office," Journal Reporter Damian Paletta said on Thursday's MetroNews Talkline. During the 2009-2010 Fiscal Year that ended last September, Paletta says Judge Daugherty only rejected four of 1,284 appeal attempts. His rate of approval is among the highest in the entire United States. The average approval rate is around 50%.
Paletta says a lot of people have been asking questions. Daugherty is one of 1,500 judges nationwide who consider appeals on benefits. All of those judges have a lot of discretion. "There's a lot of concern within the upper ranks of the Social Security bureaucracy, which is based in Baltimore, that these 1,500 judges...there's not a lot of control that the bureaucrary has over the judges because the judges have independence," Paletta says. "They are protected by federal law." Paletta says he cannot say, at this point, if Judge Daugherty is doing anything wrong. "I guess that's for others to decide. What he does is he's a disability judge and he decides these cases and his statistics are his statistics."
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