For more on this announcement, check out this great article posted by CNN.

To learn more about disability benefits and whether you are entitled to such a benefit, our office is holding a FREE LIVE SEMINAR on the topic of Federal Social Security Disability Benefits on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 in New York City. Attendees of the seminar will receive a FREE copy of our recently published disability book. To register, CLICK HERE.

If awarded disability benefits, what are you entitled to?

How can you maximize your social security disability benefits?

Will a criminal record or prior drug and alcohol abuse affect your case?

What is SSI and can you receive that too if you are found disabled?

Bulging discs. What are they? Will they help your case?
This is just a sample of the issues that Mittman and Daniels will be breaking down over the next 3 months as they continue to educate the public through the use of live internet webcasting. As attorneys who focus their practice on representing injured workers, Mittman and Daniels have successfully represented thousands of claimants.

CLICK HERE FOR A SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING SHOWS

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BRIAN MITTMAN, ESQ. AND SCOTT DANIELS, ESQ.

In the social security disability world, a claimant can still be found disabled even if their injury or impairment was not the result of a work-related accident. The Social Security Administration is only concerned about whether the injury or impairment will prevent you from performing any kind of work. Unlike workers compensation law, where a person can receive benefits if they are unable to continue performing their own job, a disability claimant must take it a step further and prove that there is no job in the local or national economy that they could perform.

We’ve had quite a winter thus far and traveling around New York has been an incredible challenge. But lets say you were injured while traveling in these difficult conditions and you are unable to work as a result. While you may not be entitled to workers compensation benefits since the injury occurred outside of the workplace, you might be entitled to disability benefits. Anything that might prevent you from maintaining a full-time job is relevant in the world of social security disability.

To find out more about whether you might be entitled to disability benefits based on your impairments, please log onto www.markhofflaw.com.

In 2009, the number of people rendered disabled by the Social Security Administration was 970,696. Within this number of people who were awarded benefits, the most common injury or impairment was diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue. These impairments accounted for 31.2% of disabled-worker awards.

Examples of these impairments include injuries to the back, neck, shoulders, knees - anything orthopedic in nature that would prevent an individual from not only performing their last work, but any other job in the local or national economy.

So what other kinds of injuries and impairments are recognized by the Social Security Administration? Stay tuned to see which ones are more popular than others…..

A work history provides insight into how long a potential disability recipient has contributed into the Social Security system. Someone with a long and steady work history will be favored by a disability ananlyst or Administrative Law Judge because the program was designed to compensate individuals who have contributed into the system.

A work history also provides information about the claimant’s job skills. Claimant’s who have held supervisory roles or positions that require a particular skillset might be more employable than a claimant who has worked in one industry all of their lives. 

Social Security is interested in a person’s work history over the last 15 years. Each and every job held in the last 15 years can potentially shed light on what a claimant might be able to do in the workforce.

For more information about why an employment history is important to a disability claim, please visit www.markhofflaw.com

What does this mean for disability recipient hopefuls?

It means that you may have to wait months, or possibly even years, to get a determination of whether or not you are disabled. If you are granted benefits upon your initial application, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. If you are denied, like the majority of disability applicants, getting a hearing could take several months.

It really depends on the hearing office where you live and how behind they are. It’s always good to inquire with an attorney first before you jump into the disability world as you will probably gain valuable insight into the process.

For a look at just how long it’s taking some hearing locations to process a hearing, CLICK HERE to check out this recently pulished list from the National Organization Of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives.

The Social Security Administration has not come up with a solution as to how disability claimants can freely treat while they are waiting for their case to be processed. Governmental programs like Medicaid help those who practically have nothing and most people are ineligible for those benefits.

Social Security announced in a press release last week that they now recognize two informative websites that will not only educate a person about their impairments, but they might be able to save money on the cost of prescriptions drugs.

For a detailed look on Social Security’s recent announcement, click here to check out this great article.

Major League Baseball’s 2010 season is right around the corner and since this website is dedicated to informing the public about disability law, here’s some insight into the MLB’s process of being placed on the disabled list.

When a major league baseball player is injured, his team can place him a “disabled list” for 15 or 60 days.  The severity of the injury and the time it will take to recover will determine which list he will be placed on. When a player is placed on the disabled list, his team can call another player from the organization to fill the roster spot.

In baseball, getting placed on the 15 or 60 day disabled list infers that the player will most likely return to the game. To tie this into Social Security Disability law, a disabled player who is unable to continue playing baseball is most certainly capable of performing some other job. Therefore, a disabled baseball player is a far cry from a Federal disability recipient.
Under Social Security’s 5 Step Sequential Evaluation, which is used to determine whether or not you are disabled, the last two steps are typically the most important to overcome. Under these final two steps, you must be able to prove that you cannot perform your past work AND you must prove that you are unable to perform any other jobs in the local or national economy. Simply being unable to work at your last job is only half the battle.

Do not confuse Medicare with Medicaid, which is a joint federal and state program that helps low income individuals and families with medical care.

For a detailed article on how a disabled individual can obtain Medicare coverage, click here.

Each disability case will require it’s own type of medical evidence and it’s crucial to know what to submit to Social Security in order to prove your alleged disability. You also want to make sure that the evidence you are submitting is supportive of your claim. The bottom line is, if you provide Social Security with the correct pieces of evidence that back up your claim for disability, you have a much better chance of winning your case.

To discover what types of medical evidence can improve your chances of obtaining benefits, click here and read up on the various things Social Security looks for in particular cases.