Did you get a notice in the mail of something a little frightening regarding your Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits? Was it called a continuing disability review? Don’t panic, these can be normal for many recipients of SSDI benefits. How do you pass a continuing disability review? Let Tabak Law provide you with some of our best tips and along the way, we’ll explain the purpose of these reviews as well.
What is the Purpose of a Continuing Disability Review?
Some disabilities do get better, and a continuing disability review allows the Social Security Administration a chance to review your case to ensure that continuing SSDI benefits is still warranted. Should you be concerned? Our general advice is don’t be concerned, but be prepared. You’ve already overcome the obstacle of getting SSDI benefits in the first place which is a lot harder than getting through a continuing disability review.
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How to Prepare for a Continuing Disability Review
There are some things you can do to prepare, and we will get to those below, but if you are just here out of curiosity, or even if you somehow landed here because your benefits have been turned off without warning, then there’s a common mistake that we want to make sure you didn’t commit. When you move, you have to inform the Social Security Administration. All major communication, such as your continuing disability review notice, will be sent via mail. No response will mean no benefits.
- Be Honest—WIth your continuing disability review notice, you will receive a form that is either the short form or long form. Answer the questions very honestly. The short form is sent to people with permanent disabilities, but if your answers on the short form are a cause for concern, the Social Security Administration will send you the long form which will further delay the process.
- Listen to Your Doctors—We know, it’s all too easy to ignore what your doctors have to say. We all have a bit of a stubborn streak in us when it comes to people telling us how to live, but this is the biggest mistake SSDI benefit recipients make. If you are not following the treatment plan that your doctors have prescribed not only can it lead to a bad continuing disability review, it can even trigger one in the first place.
Read More: Do You Qualify for Medicare While on SSDI? - Documentation—Make sure you have copies of all your medical records and copies of all communication with the Social Security Administration. They may ask for those records and quite frankly, they lose documents all the time. Ensuring that you have everything will ensure that they can get everything they need.
- Stay Informed—It’s easy to be on autopilot when you are visiting with your doctors. However, you should stay on top of your condition, not just when it comes to following doctors’ orders, but also when it comes to understanding what’s going on with your health. You don’t want to contradict your medical records, and if you feel your records are inaccurate, you need to bring that to the attention of your doctors.
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