How much will you get from Social Security

Social Security Disability Payments are calculated based on what your total lifetime average earnings are that you have paid in to Social Security.

Typically, once a year, Social Security send a statement to inform everyone over age 18 how much they would receive, should they become disabled.

To obtain a copy of your statement, please visit : www.ssa.gov/mystatement

Additionally, to get an approximation about what your payments might be, please visit : http://www.ssa.gov/planners/benefitcalculators.htm

To further understand any of the issues above, please visit:

www.berkleylaw.net

Filing for Social Security Disability Benefits

If you and your medical providers have decided that you can no longer work, the next question to ask is, What do I do now?

Well, if you are under age 65, you may qualify for Social Security Disability.

There are a couple of ways to get the ball rolling:

1. Contact Social Security at 1-800-772-1213, spend the better part of your day on hold waiting for someone to come on the line, only to schedule an appointment for you to go to your local office. Once there, you must again wait in line to be seen by a representative, or

2. File online at http://www.ssa.gov and have the application completed in about 10 minutes.

After the application is submitted, Social Security will bombard you with paperwork. At The Berkley Law Group www.berkleylaw.net, we can effectively navigate the waters of Social Security and provide the guiding light you need to make certain the administration has everything they need.

For more information, please feel free to contact our office at www.berkleylaw.net

SSA COMPASSIONATE ALLOWANCES

The Social Security Administration has an obligation to provide benefits as quickly as possible to applicants whose medical impairments meet the guidelines.

Accordingly, Social Security has set forth a program entitled "Compassionate Allowances." This program is designed to quickly identify diseases and other medical impairments that will qualify under the medical listings provision of the Code of Federal Regulations.

The list includes the following:

1
Acute Leukemia
2
Adrenal Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
3
Alexander Disease (ALX) - Neonatal and Infantile
4
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
5
Anaplastic Adrenal Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
6
Astrocytoma - Grade III and IV
7
Bladder Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
8
Bone Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
9
Breast Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
10
Canavan Disease (CD)
11
Cerebro Oculo Facio Skeletal (COFS) Syndrome
12
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) - Blast Phase
13
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) - Adult
14
Ependymoblastoma (Child Brain Tumor)
15
Esophageal Cancer
16
Farber's Disease (FD) - Infantile
17
Friedreichs Ataxia (FRDA)
18
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), Picks Disease -Type A - Adult
19
Gallbladder Cancer
20
Gaucher Disease (GD) - Type 2
21
Glioblastoma Multiforme (Brain Tumor)
22
Head and Neck Cancers - with distant metastasis or inoperable or uresectable
23
Infantile Neuroaxonal Dystrophy (INAD)
24
Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)
25
Kidney Cancer - inoperable or unresectable
26
Krabbe Disease (KD) - Infantile
27
Large Intestine Cancer - with distant metastasis or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
28
Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome (LNS)
29
Liver Cancer
30
Mantle Cell Lymphoma (MCL)
31
Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) - Late Infantile
32
Niemann-Pick Disease (NPD) - Type A
33
Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer - with metastases to or beyond the hilar nodes or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
34
Ornithine Transcarbamylase (OTC) Deficiency
35
Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) - Type II
36
Ovarian Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable or unresectable
37
Pancreatic Cancer
38
Peritoneal Mesothelioma
39
Pleural Mesothelioma
40
Pompe Disease - Infantile
41
Rett (RTT) Syndrome
42
Salivary Tumors
43
Sandhoff Disease
44
Small Cell Cancer (of the Large Intestine, Ovary, Prostate, or Uterus)
45
Small Cell Lung Cancer
46
Small Intestine Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
47
Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) - Types 0 And 1
48
Stomach Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent
49
Thyroid Cancer
50
Ureter Cancer - with distant metastases or inoperable, unresectable or recurrent



To undersatnd how we might be able to assist you with your claim for Social Security Disability or SUpplemental Security Income benefits, please visit us at www.berkleylaw.net

REPRESENTING YOURSELF

Statistics show that over 75 percent of initial claims for social security disability benefits are denied. Those same statistics also bear out that persnos who are represented by an attorney have over a 70 percent success rate in obtaining benefits.

If you are reluctant to retain an attorney, remember that by law the attorney must take your case on a contingency. That means that he only gets paid if he wins. Accordingly, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose by hiring an attorney.

ATTORNEY FEES

A congressional committee that oversees the SSA has recommended that attorney fees be increased from the current maximum of $5300 to $6,000. If approved, the increase is not due to go into effect until after June, 2009. It still has not been determined how this will effect cases that are already in progress. Note, this is the first fee increase in more than eight years.

Change is coming

With the inaugaration of President Obama, the new president has pledged that he will review every governmental agency. This would include the Social Security Administration. And through the lobbying efforts of myself and my colllegues, we are hopeuful that the current disability evaluation process will be evaulated and that the hearing process can be accelerated.

WAIT TIME FOR HEARINGS INCREASES

I just returned from a conference of Social Security Disablity attorneys that was held in Baltimore. Twice a year, representatives from the SSA are invited to provide an update as to how the system is improving. This year, as has been in the past, the news has not been positive. In fact, we learned that each day more than 2600 new claims are filed and the average wait time to get a hearing can be as long as two years!

So what to do? It is very important that you develop your medical evidence as soon as possible. It is not enough to simply submit medical records, notes, and test results. The SSA needs reports from your treating doctors which document what you can and cannot do. These are known as Residual Functional Questionnaires.

if you would like to discuss your case, visit my web site at www.berkleylaw.net or e-mail me at ben.berkley@berkleylaw.net