Still, the SSA has been grossly underfunded and ignored by Congress for far too long, and the amount of claims being filed versus the staff and decision-makers required to adjudicate the claims is in a horrible state of imbalance. Congress…
Still, the SSA has been grossly underfunded and ignored by Congress for far too long, and the amount of claims being filed versus the staff and decision-makers required to adjudicate the claims is in a horrible state of imbalance. Congress…
The SSA is struggling with an avalanche of long COVID applications and applicants are stymied by the agency’s murky qualifying criteria. Will the SSA be able to manage the pressure? The system can handle the intake of all new…
The Stop the Wait Act would amend the Social Security Act to give anyone approved for SSDI immediate access to Medicare benefits. It also would phase out the five-month waiting period between SSDI approval and the distribution of benefits. Democratic…
In February, doctors and advocates petitioned Congress to make it easier for the most vulnerable long COVID sufferers to get their Medicare benefits through the Stop the Wait Act. Anyone who is approved for SSDI automatically qualifies for Medicare —…
SSDI requires that the disability affects you for at least a year or that you have credible reason to believe that it will last this long. While long COVID can include symptoms that typically qualify for SSDI, like chronic fatigue…
Murky diagnosis criteria are only one reason that long COVID claims face such a steep uphill battle. Another is that the ailment is just so new — and SSDI claims follow long timelines. One major issue with long COVID for…
Long COVID sufferers applying for disability benefits are being denied high volume due to the general lack of understanding when it comes to symptoms that arise from long COVID. In cases where benefits are awarded it is not the symptom…
The SSA denied 66% of disability claims between 2008 and 2019. The Government Accountability Office found that between 2014 and 2019, 48,000 people (1.3% of applicants) went bankrupt while waiting for decisions on their disability appeals. Nearly 110,000 people died…
In July 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared long COVID a disability under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), but only “if it substantially limits one or more major life activities.” That statement, however, is qualified…
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) helps people of limited means who can’t work because of a disability. Qualifying for SSDI was always notoriously difficult, but the pandemic created a new disability that’s swamping the Social Security Administration (SSA) with applications:…