When a disability prevents you from working, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits are supposed to be there to rely upon – but getting your claim approved is seldom easy.
Right now, it is taking roughly seven months to get a decision on an initial claim for benefits, and those are often denied. Roughly 10,000 people die every year waiting on the Social Security Administration to confirm that they’re “sick enough” to receive SSDI.
Why are so many claims wrongfully denied?
A lot of valid SSDI claims are denied because of small mistakes. These include:
- Lack of medical evidence: This often isn’t because the medical evidence isn’t available, but simply because the hospital or doctor’s office fails to send it to the Social Security Administration (SSA) when requested.
- Failure to stay in contact: You can generally expect someone from SSA to get in touch with you several times throughout the SSDI evaluation process. They may want to get additional medical releases, ask you more questions about your education or work history and more. If you don’t keep SSA updated on your contact information, they may decide with whatever is in your file, and that’s probably not going to be favorable.
- Failure to attend consultative exams: SSA may also ask you to attend one or more consultative examinations with an independent physician. If you don’t agree to these exams, your claim will probably be denied.
- Incomplete information: Those disability applications are complicated and lengthy. If you leave off any important data, that can negatively affect your claim.
It can be intimidating to file for Social Security Disability benefits. Legal guidance can make it easier to avoid these kinds of mistakes.