Social Security Disability FAQs

A Social Security Disability application involves filling out many forms and submitting medical records that show the severity of your health condition and the reasons you cannot work.

Factors including your age, work history, financial situation and more also go into qualifying for Social Security Disability. A disability lawyer from Empower Disability by Workers’ Compensation, LLC, can take on the legwork for you. Here are the requirements to get SSI Disability and how to qualify for SSI in Louisiana.

It can take a few months to get an answer on whether you’ll be awarded benefits.

With Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits, you get monthly checks to help pay for your essential expenses when you can’t work due to bad health.

SSD also qualifies you for Medicare or Medicaid health care coverage.

These benefits can make a big difference in your life when you can’t work because of bad health.

For help getting benefits, talk to a disability attorney from Workers’ Compensation, LLC.

Social Security runs two disability benefits programs:

• Social Security Disability Income (SSDI): This is for people who have substantial recent work history during which they paid into the Social Security system through taxes withheld from their paychecks.
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI): This is for people without much recent work history whose incomes and financial resources are low enough to qualify. If you can’t get SSDI because of your work and financial situation, you may qualify for SSI.

Yes. Workers’ compensation is for an injury on the job. Social Security Disability is for any long-term health problems that make working impossible.

You can get both at once, though Social Security will deduct from your disability benefits to offset what you’re getting from workers’ comp.

The lawyers at Workers’ Compensation, LLC, can help you with both kinds of benefits. Our goal is to maximize the financial support available to you when you’re facing injuries or chronic medical conditions. Contact Us Today!

If you wait too long after you could no longer work to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, you may no longer qualify. In that case, you may need to apply for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits instead.

But the exact time window you have to apply for disability benefits depends on your individual situation.

The category of your past jobs is one factor, such as whether you were an employee, a contract laborer, self-employed, or working under another arrangement.

Tell us about your work history, and the disability attorneys at Workers’ Compensation, LLC, can give you an idea of your case.

Every case is different, so there is no perfect answer. Across the country, people often wait at least eight months for an initial decision from Social Security.

If you’re denied benefits and need to appeal the decision, the wait becomes much longer: several months to more than a year.

One of the key steps in appealing is having a hearing with a disability judge. As an example of how long the process takes, a survey in August 2020 found that people in Louisiana were waiting almost 11 months to get to their hearings with a judge.

Tight budgets and low staffing have created long waits for Social Security Disability benefits for years. That makes it even more important for you to avoid mistakes in your application so you don’t create any more reasons for delay.

No. Disability lawyers can’t change how the Social Security system moves.

Certain situations can speed up your claim, such as having an acute disease that obviously qualifies you for benefits and gets you a “compassionate allowance,” or having a dire financial need, such as possible homelessness.

We do think that a lawyer can improve your chances of winning benefits in the end.

Any medical condition can qualify you for Social Security Disability if it’s severe enough that you can’t work in your past job or any job.

The requirements for some conditions are well detailed by Social Security. In other cases, you must show how your health and symptoms, whatever they are, have reduced your functioning.

If you wonder whether you have a claim, you can talk to a disability lawyer for an initial consultation on your situation at no charge.

Our disability lawyers have decades of experience with Social Security Disability cases.

And our legal team has 130 years of combined experience helping hardworking people in Louisiana with injuries and disabilities. We’ve secured more than $300 million in workers’ comp settlements for Louisianians.

Many of the disability firms you see are from out of state. National firms may just try to grab as many cases as they can without investing personal care and attention into each one.

Sometimes, they even make their websites look like government sites as a sneaky way of getting people to sign up with them.

We are Louisiana lawyers who care about Louisiana people. Workers’ Compensation, LLC, even created a special division, Empower Disability, devoted to helping Louisianans with their disability claims.

In Metairie, New Orleans, Hammond, the Northshore, Baton Rouge, Houma, Lafayette, Alexandria, Shreveport, Monroe, or anywhere else in Louisiana, talk to us for help with Social Security Disability benefits.

The Empower Disability lawyers can answer even more questions you may have about getting disability benefits.

Empower Disability and Workers’ Compensation, LLC, have offices in Metairie and the Hammond area, but our attorneys travel the entire state of Louisiana to help injured workers

You can call us at 504-838-8883.

The Empower Disability lawyers can answer even more questions you may have about getting disability benefits.

Or fill out the contact form below.