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The short answer is the Social Security Administration (SSA); however, the longer and more accurate answer is Disability Determination Services(DDS).

First, SSA will review your application to make sure you meet some basic requirements for disability benefits. They will check whether you worked enough years to qualify. Additionally, they will undergo an evaluation of any current work activities. If you meet these requirements, they will process your application and forward your case to the DDS office in your state. This state agency completes the initial disability determination decision for SSA. Claims examiners and medical examiners in the state agency ask your doctors for information about your condition. DDS is supposed to consider all the facts in your case. They’ll use the medical evidence from your doctors, hospitals, clinics, or institutions where you have been treated and possibly additional information.

Some of the questions they will ask pertain to the following:

Your medical condition(s);
When your medical condition(s) began;
How your medical condition(s) limit your activities;
Medical tests results; and
What treatment you’ve received.

DDS also ask the doctors for information about your ability to do work-related activities, such as walking, sitting, lifting, carrying, and remembering instructions. Keep in mind that it is not your doctors who decide if you’re disabled. Rather, according to the rules it is up to DDS to make that determination. Also, if your medical sources can’t provide the necessary information, DDS may ask you to a consultative examination. Social Security will pay for the exam and for some of the related travel costs.

When DDS makes its determination on your case, they will send a letter to you. If your application is approved, the letter will show the amount of your benefit, and when your payments start. If the application isn’t approved, you typically have the option of appealing the decision.

To learn more about the appeals process, please read “Social Security Denials and Appeals” available through disabilitysecrets.com.

By Kevin J. Kohler

From: Joshua Tripp

In some cases, where a claimant has not worked recently and there is too many household assets or too much income to be eligible for SSI, the claimants are left struggling to prove disability for many years prior to the current date. This can be very difficult to do and there must be more than just the claimant’s testimony to win the case.

For an example, I recently had a social security claimant who had to go back about ten years to prove disability. For approval here, it must be shown that the claimant had a disability prior to their date last insured and that their disability has continued. This requires consistent medical evidence of severe impairment. Additionally, to bolster the claimant’s medical record of ten years ago, I had the claimant’s current doctor, who was currently supportive of disability, write a narrative of the claimant’s impairments based on the current time frame, along with a review of the prior medical records. This was helpful to assess that the conditions were as severe ten years as they are today. He opined that the claimant was unable to work ten years ago and the condition has not improved. Although this is important, his opinion needs to be supported by the medical record as a whole. The medical evidence is particularly important for a case with a remote date last insured because it is hard to say the claimant can testify about conditions as accurately ten years ago as they could today.

It is always best to not wait to apply for social security disability. Waiting can put you in the predicament of having to prove disability many years prior to the application, which is not an easy task. Contact a social security attorney before it is too late.

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Written by Hoglund Law