When Should You Consider Hiring a Disability Professional?

Disability filing, appealing and periodic reviews are not simple matters, and with your monthly benefits, or even your entire financial situation riding on them, there’s no room for error when engaging in these matters with the SSA.

We’ve touched upon the best time to file for disability benefits previously in our blog: quickly, once you have allotted time to gather medical data regarding your condition. However, when is the right time to contact an expert to guide you through the disability application process? When is reaching out to professional disability consultants necessary for getting the benefits you deserve?

In this blog post, we highlight situations in which hiring a seasoned, knowledgeable disability expert to aid with your application or appeal for disability can make all the difference in your being awarded the benefits you deserve.

Overcoming the Complex Filing Process

Getting approved for monthly SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) can be tough, with all the back-and-forth paperworkrequired by the SSA to support your claim for benefits. By hiring a disability consultant to oversee your application, you can strengthen your claim and its support in the face of SSA scrutiny.

All too often, applicants for social security disability benefits have their claims denied due to insufficient medical records or poor filing practices. This is an entirely avoidable, everyday mistake that every year costs thousands of Americans the support income they deserve in the onset of disability.

To better meet the deadlines and evidence requirements set by the SSA for disability applications, we highly recommend contacting a trained disability professional the exact same day you first decide to file for benefits. It’s far more beneficial to have a seasoned disability consultant guiding your application throughout the entire claim process than it is to reach out to experts when it’s too late; when there is little trained experts can do to make any meaningful improvements to your claim.

Appealing Your Disability Decision with Expert Help

This brings us our next point: if you’ve already filed for disability and have had your claim denied based on medical or financial grounds, or even because of a mistake on the SSA’s behalf, a compassionate disability professional can be your greatest asset in filing your appeal. You don’t have to handle everything by yourself.

Specially trained and experienced disability experts can help you build the strongest appeal possible, and handle the complex paperwork involved in appealing your decision with professionalism. This includes responsibilities such as:

• Paperwork filing and evidence gathering; all the record-keeping tasks required for building the strongest appeal possible
• Engaging in interactions with the government, local agencies and offices of the SSA (the institutions that will ultimately determine your appeal decision)
• Reviewing your appeal, and correcting the filing mistakes or errors made during your initial application

Trained disability experts know all the technical ins and outs of applying for disability benefits; even those specific to the SSDI appeal process (erroneous legal listing, documentation or medical records). During a disability appeal, however, it is important to act quickly. The SSA typically grants claimants a 60-day period to apply for a higher-level benefit appeal. Beyond this period, you will lose your ability to appeal your claim, and any benefits you could have been awarded for it.

There are exceptions to this rule, however; in each of which hiring a disability consultant to oversee your appeal could make the difference between a second denial and getting the benefits you deserve. These are as follows:

• If your benefits for disability have been ceased, you may request your payments be continued during the appeal process if you submit a formal request within 10 days of notice. You will still be required to file an appeal within 60 days.
• If your disability claim was remanded by a Federal District Court, and subsequently denied by a federal judge, you will have only 30 days to appeal your decision to the Appeals Council.

Whether you’re a first-time applicant for disability, a recently denied applicant or a long-time recipient of SSDI who has recently been discontinued benefits, we recommend contacting a seasoned, compassionate disability expert in your state as soon as you can to bolster your claim or appeal.