I am now 100% P&T, what do I need to know to apply for Social Security Disability?

[traveler]

I have recently been raised up to 100% P & T for VA disability.

How do I find out about applying for Social Security?

Is there any source where I can learn about it, from being in my situation?

I don't know ANYTHING about it.  Please help!

[john999]

Does SSDI not consider sheltered employment as a factor for granting benefits.  With your disability I think you could get SSDI pretty easy.  How old are you?  If you are over 50 it is easier to get SSDI.  Maybe if you are still able to work you might want to do so as long as you can because they you get bigger SSA check.  I got SSDI when I was 51 for about the same thing you have. It was pretty easy in Florida,   but I had a hell of a good private doctor write me an IMO.  The IMO is what did it.  Man, if you got 100% plus "S" you damn sure should be able to get SSDI when you stop working.  However, with SSDI depending on your situation it can take a long time including getting a lawyer etc.  Save every penny you can for a wait after you hang up the job.  These benefits are unpredictable.  When I got fired from my job I applied for worker's compensation on the way out the door.  I got those benefits which did tide me over until I got SSDI and TDIU.  You must use every avenue you have in our situation.  I worked for the post office and they were bastards to me.  I got OPM retirement and all the rest and each benefit was different with certain requirements.  For me TDIU with the VA was the hardest.  The VA took me over the hurdles but I got it. 

[Rivet62]

7 hours ago, john999 said:

For me TDIU with the VA was the hardest.

What was your rating when you applied for TDIU?  You may have said somewhere but I can't recall.

[traveler]

"100 plus "s" "?  I don't follow, Sir.  Being retired military, you get concurrent receipt which is a retirement check AND a VA disability check, if over 50% VA Disabled and 20+ years of military service, i.e. retired military.  The C+P I just had 3 months ago is what got me to 100% P+T.  I am really beat up.

Edited February 12, 2022 by traveler

[Rivet62]

On 2/7/2022 at 11:18 PM, john999 said:

If you have a mental disability like ptsd, depression, panic disorder, bipolar it is easier to get SSDI. 

Ultimately, if you're not already in a VAMC, then I think it depends on what state you're in, and what access to Medicaid or other access to healthcare you have. Each state administers Medicaid, like gatekeepers to this federal funding. Some states qualify you on just income. Other states, like my ex-state, will deny deny deny Medicaid.  You have to be disabled to get Medicaid in my ex-state, but you can't get your disability because you can't get Medicaid to get the diagnosis for disability.  You can get Medicaid in a snap if you have children in the home, so for me, in my experience, in some ways yes it's easier to get SSI or SSDI with an MH condition, and in other ways no it's not easier because like you said they can't see the disability with an x-ray and MH itself is debilitating making it harder to follow through. it's harder. I had to develop the documentation to win my SSA case at the appeal level.

I finally had the MH diagnosis, after 35 years of little to no healthcare.  After I got into the VAMC, 35 years post discharge, then I was 70% service-connected for it straight away.  I had records of it in service.  Even so, I had 35+ years of a work history, post discharge, with just an average annual income of just $4,600 over 35 years in my SSA earnings record. and my highest ever earning was $17k (you would think that alone should be enough, but no it wasn't).  I couldn't win an SSA claim on my records as is. I managed to scrape together recent work credits, but still it wasn't enough.

Even after a solid diagnosis at the VAMC it still wasn't enough. What I didn't have was documentation of how MH interfered with work. When I had problems with work I just wouldn't go back, or I had frequent unexplained absences (unexcused absences, meaning no doctor's note, because no health insurance and no healthcare). I would begin to falter at work, and then I couldn't cover it up, and the humiliation was too much, then I just wouldn't go back. I would hear the alarm clock in the morning and freeze and I was filled with unbearable dread.  I couldn't even get out the door.  Then I couldn't pay the rent, then I couldn't keep car insurance, a steady history of pulling myself up and repeatedly spiraling down.  That was my life. The performance reports I needed to show the SSA were never there because I would do well, but then I would just leave.  

A good DX will help, yes.  But if you can't get the DX, like me, because your state would rather sit on Medicaid rather than help you then you're in a catch-22 of needing to prove MH problems or physical problems with no medical records and/or no work documentation. Truly, had it not been for my access to healthcare at the VA I could never have won SSDI.

The funny thing about VA healthcare is that veterans could go decades, like me, not realizing their eligibility to apply. If you're a vet who got out of the service decades ago, like me, then you didn't have the benefit of a VHA rep enrolling you into the VHA as you out-processed your discharge. You had no one encouraging you to file claims for service-connect. No one told me I could use the VHA. I thought it was for retirees or combat wounded. No one told me. I went to a VARO about 7 years after I discharged to get an idea of what benefits I had, and healthcare was not among them because the VA doesn't consider healthcare a benefit, like they do the home loan or the education benefits. So, I never knew. But I do know this, if I owed the IRS money then they could notify me in a heartbeat as soon as I connected their dots through a new employer's tax paperwork. But VA healthcare? Nah. 

I connected with VA healthcare when there was the public push to get veterans off the street. Remember that? All kinds of outreach programs came into existence, and for me it was a homeless shelter that received federal grant money to help vets. That's how I finally connected with VA healthcare.

So. one may ask, geez how did you survive?  Marriages, and state and federal student aid. I was a professional student off and on. Student aid doesn't count as income, so there were many benefits out of that (but not healthcare).

Thanks for bearing with me in this long winded post, but I think I'm just thinking out loud in preparation for an MH C&P exam coming up because I applied for TDIU.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Rivet62

[Rivet62]

18 hours ago, john999 said:

Does SSDI not consider sheltered employment as a factor for granting benefits.

SSA will not consider CWT at a VA as taxable income for the purpose of SSDI, because it's therapy. SSA will if your application is about SSI. In addition, at the state and local county level they will consider it as a resource, and it will lower food stamps to probably zero.  SSA will consider sheltered employment income as a disqualifier for SSI and it will disqualify you for SSDI. It's important for an SSA applicant to know the difference between CWT or a like-kind program and "sheltered employment" under VA's definition.  For SSA, you're either employed or not, sheltered or not. The only way to get out of that hard and fast rule is to be in a CWT-like program.  Even so, CWT will impact SSI but not SSDI. And a vet has to be careful with a CWT program because it has an ongoing aspect of evaluation that could land a veteran into a status of being employable, but on the outside that may not be the case over time. In other words, CWT could complicate your SSA application or add years to proving that you are not employable even though CWT says you are.

SSI is like welfare. It is needs based.  SSDI is what you have earned in your work history out of every paycheck when you had SS and Medicare withheld from your social security wages (as it's called on your W2).  You have to have a record of having paid into the system sufficiently enough for SSDI. Otherwise, you fall into the SSI category and then your assets and other resources come into play like any other welfare program.  For me, I had just $16 over the SSI monthly payment. I had just enough work credits to fall into the SSDI category, and because it was SSDI I could get my SSA back pay. If you fall into the SSI category, then you will not get SSA back pay (and I don't know how an attorney gets paid from a successful SSI case, --I don't think they do--  My attorney wanted to see if I had enough work credits to qualify for SSDI, otherwise she wouldn't have taken my case. SSI doesn't require sufficient work credits). If you are a veteran receiving vets disability, then your vets disability income affects SSI qualification, but it will not affect SSDI because (like insurance) you have been paying premiums into it.  And as we all know, there is no offset in receiving SSDI and vets disability together. But there is an offset if it's about SSI.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Rivet62
brain not working

[Rivet62]

6 hours ago, traveler said:

"100 plus "s" "?  I don't follow, Sir. 

I think he's talking about 100% P&T and in addition getting SMCs (Special Monetary Compensation). There are categories of SMCs.

https://www.va.gov/disability/compensation-rates/special-monthly-compensation-rates/

He's saying that if you are 100% P&T AND getting SMCs??!! Yeah, you're slam dunk for getting SSDI no problem.

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by Rivet62