Qualify for Social Security Disability in Charleston

Medical Rules to Qualify for Social Security Disability in Charleston

The first requirement for Social Security Disability is that you must have a qualifying disability.

But “disability” in the eyes of Social Security is a highly particular situation. It may not be what you picture. Even doctors think of disability differently from Social Security.

All sorts of health problems—including many common ones people don’t call a “disability”—can qualify for disability benefits. At the same time, some conditions that people imagine to be disabilities, maybe because they require use of wheelchairs or other assistive devices, aren’t automatically disabilities to Social Security.

For Social Security, a disability is when your medical condition, whatever it is, means you can’t work.

These are the basic health-related qualifications for Social Security Disability benefits:

• You cannot continue in your job because of your health problems.
• You couldn’t switch to another job, either, even something less strenuous.
• This situation—your inability to work much at all—already has or clearly will last at least a year.

It’s always good to get a professional opinion on whether your health problems may qualify for disability benefits.

The South Carolina disability law team at Robertson Wendt Disability can provide a free, initial evaluation of your claim.

Get my free disability qualifications review.

Financial Rules to Qualify for Disability Benefits in Charleston

Besides your health, to qualify for Social Security Disability benefits, you also have to meet certain rules about your income, work history and work status.

The main disability benefits program run by Social Security, called Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), requires you to have paid into the system through your Social Security taxes.

You need a history of income from working that you paid Social Security taxes on.

This is generally how it works:

• You earn “work credits” when you work, with each credit equaling a certain amount of money you made (over time Social Security changes the dollar value of a credit).
• You can only earn up to four credits per year, so it’s not as though a high income would get you more credits. Once you earn a basic amount, you get your credits.
• To get disability benefits, you need 40 credits. Half of those need to be within the last 10 years.
• Another way to look at it is that you need to have worked at least five of the last 10 years.
• If you’re too young to have worked that long, it can be hard to win disability benefits, but you still could qualify based on how many credits you could be expected to earn at your age.

Then there’s the question of any current income you have.

Remember, you must be unable to work to qualify for Social Security Disability.

So if you’re working right now, you may be denied for disability benefits.

Social Security has a limit for what it considers too much work to qualify for disability. It’s called “substantial gainful activity,” or SGA. It sets a dollar amount on SGA.

• By 2025, most individuals could not earn more than $1,620 per month from working and get disability benefits. 
• If you have statutory blindness, you could earn more, $2,700 per month.

This only applies to income from work, not income from interest on savings or returns on investments.

In fact, for SSDI you can have any amount in the bank and still get benefits. You could own real estate or other valuable assets and still get benefits.

SSDI is only concerned about your ability to work a job and how much you’re making from work.

A Note about Qualifying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

Like we said, you qualify for SSDI partly by having a record of working and paying into the Social Security system.

It’s important to understand that this is not a handout. It’s a form of insurance coverage that you paid for.

Nobody wants to have health problems disrupt their life. South Carolinians value hard work and don’t like asking for help.

But if you paid for insurance for something, like your car or house,and you suffered damage, you wouldn’t shy away from seeking what you’re entitled to receive.

It’s the same with Social Security Disability Insurance.

Another program exists for people who haven’t earned enough work credits, or earned them recently enough, to get SSDI. It helps people who may have had seriously limiting health problems from a young age, or many years, and have never been able to work much.

The other program also could apply to someone who has worked and has credits but whose wages were low enough that their monthly disability payments would be a low amount.

That program is called Supplemental Security Income (SSI). People often confuse SSI and SSDI.

Besides the same inability to work that you must show to get SSDI, SSI requires you have few financial resources.

Unlike with SSDI, to get SSI you cannot have much in savings, investments, any other income sources, or property other than your primary home and one car.

A disability lawyer in Charleston from Robertson Wendt Disability can help you sort out your options.

Talk to a Charleston disability lawyer.

Special Circumstances that Help You Qualify for SSDI

Some situations can increase your chances of winning disability benefits, speed up your approval, or allow different members of the family to get benefits.

An experienced Charleston Social Security Disability lawyer can make sure you’re getting the benefit of these situations:

• You’re Over 50. Over the age of 50, it gets easier to meet the key disability benefits standard of being unable to switch to a new line of work. Social Security recognizes that it can be harder for people to adjust to different work at this age. 

• Your Disease Is Aggressive. It normally takes months, or longer, to get approved for disability benefits. But if you have a disease that is obviously severe enough to rule out working, Social Security has a program called Compassionate Allowances that lets you get benefits faster. Social Security has a list of diseases, including diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s disease and several cancers, which qualify. 

• Your Parents Have a Qualifying Social Security Record. If you have an adult child, or you are an adult, who has never been able to work a substantial amount because of health limitations that began when you were young,a parent’s Social Security work record can cover you for disability benefits. These are called Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefits. 

• You’re the Spouse of Someone Who Gets Disability Benefits. If your husband or wife qualifies for Social Security Disability (or retirement) because they paid enough into the system, you could receive a spousal benefit under certain circumstances. You must be 62 or older, or any age but care for your spouse’s underage child or child with a qualifying disability. If your own Social Security benefits, based on your own work record, would be higher, you would do that instead.

The 5 Steps to Qualify for Disability Benefits in South Carolina (and Everywhere Else)

To help you understand all of these qualifications, Social Security spelled them out as a five-step process. It’s another way to tell whether you qualify for Social Security Disability.

They place it in the form of a series of questions. Here’s how it goes:

• Are you working? Remember, you must be unable to work more than a small amount to get benefits. 

• Are your health problems severe? This is where you look at your inability to work for at least 12 months. 

• Do you have a condition on Social Security’s official list? Social Security keeps a listing of impairments that can qualify for benefits, sometimes called the “blue book.” Meeting the description of a condition on the list is a way to get benefits, but your health issues don’t have to be on the list if you can show how they interfere with tasks you must do for work 

• Can you do your past work? In terms of your work, first Social Security looks to see how your symptoms and health limitations prevent you from doing the kinds of jobs you’ve done before. 

• Can you do any work? Then they look to see if your training, work background, age, and skills that could transfer to other jobs, would allow you to switch to a new kind of job.

It’s easy to make mistakes in describing your health and work experience, causing Social Security to deny you when you should get benefits.

A skilled Charleston Social Security Disability attorney can guide you through this process, so you avoid snags and complications.

Call a disability attorney.

Does My Particular Health Problem Qualify for SSDI?

Considering the specialized definition of “disability” that Social Security uses, it’s natural to wonder whether your health problem qualifies for disability benefits.

Your individual diagnosis can be helpful to your claim when it’s on Social Security’s listing of impairments.

But qualifying for disability benefits isn’t all about what diagnosis you have. It’s about the severity of your case, no matter what it is.

You can qualify for Social Security Disability with physical impairments, mental health disorders, and combinations of multiple disorders.

If Social Security doesn’t recognize your particular ailment, you can use a measure called your “Residual Functional Capacity” or RFC, which your doctor provides, documenting your physical and mental struggles. Your disability lawyer can work with your doctor on this.

At Robertson Wendt Disability in Charleston, these are just a few of the health conditions we often help people get disability benefits for:

• Anxiety
• Autism
• Back pain
• Cancer
• Congestive heart failure
• Depression
• Diabetes
• Fibromyalgia
• Heart Disease
• Lupus
• Mental illness
• Multiple sclerosis
• Narcolepsy
• RSD
• Seizures
• Ulcerative colitis

Some impairments—the ones with easy-to-see physical effects—can be easier to prove to Social Security than others.

Mental health conditions, or conditions involving pain or fatigue that only you truly understand, come with challenges, but they can qualify for benefits.

Work with a Charleston disability attorney who’s handled thousands of cases before. They’ll know how to approach it.

Getting Medicare when You Qualify for Social Security Disability

The monthly checks you get with Social Security Disability are a great relief when you can’t work, you’ve lost your income, and you need to make ends meet.

Another major benefit of Social Security Disability—maybe just as valuable as the income support—is that it gets you into Medicare early to cover your health care needs.

Normally you have to wait until retirement age to get Medicare health coverage. If you ever talk to retirees about it, they might tell you how nice it is when you get it.

Social Security Disability Insurance qualifies you for Medicare when you’re younger but living with health impairments.

Once you qualify for SSDI, this is the only remaining qualification you face for Medicare:

• You must wait two years from the date Social Security officially determined your disability began to start Medicare.

It sounds like a long wait. However, it’s not an additional wait that only starts the moment you’re approved for disability benefits.

Months that you waited on your disability claim can be subtracted from the two-year wait for Medicare. By the time you win disability benefits, you may be able to get Medicare much sooner than two years.

Qualifying for Social Security Disability benefits, including Medicare, can change your life, allowing you to find ways to adjust to the new normal of living with severe health problems with dignity and independence.

Let the Charleston Social Security Disability attorneys at Robertson Wendt Disability help you reach a better situation.

Contact our disability lawyers in Charleston today.