An injury at work in Indiana can cause a worker to be permanently disabled. Social Security disability provides them a way to get compensated for the injury if they are not yet eligible for Social Security. Injured workers may wonder how to start a claim and if they qualify.
How to file claims
An applicant should not delay filing claims since they may take a few weeks to process. Interviews are still part of the claims process, but applicants have some convenient ways of filing initial claims. They can file online, in person or by calling the toll-free number of the Social Security office in their area.
Claimants should have the needed documents ready to submit or take with them to the office. This includes work history, birth certificates or citizenship status and personal information.
Claimants also need to list all doctors that treated them with addresses and phone numbers, and they must be prepared to get asked about all financial resources, such as stocks, bonds and trusts. The Social Security Administration offers many materials on SSD benefits including The Blue Book, Medicare, Disability Planner and other resources.
Qualifications and denials
SSD shouldn’t be confused with SSI, which stands for Supplemental Security Insurance. An employee has to earn so many credits to qualify for SSD while SSI is based on need.
To qualify for the full SSD payment, a worker commonly has to earn 40 credits, and 20 of them have to be earned in the last 10 years. The applicants must not be able to work at full capacity for at least 12 months. The SSA may determine if the claimant would be able to work in a less strenuous position at their current job or another job.
Denials occur less frequently, and only 11% of claimants get approved the first time. The SSA denies some claims because the organization deems the condition not “severe enough.” It concludes that 31% of applicants could do other work. Workers may make appeals, but they commonly have two months.
Not every injured worker qualifies for SSD payments, but the SSA sometimes denies legitimate claims. If a worker feels that they were unfairly denied, they have a right to an attorney to help file an appeal.