Attorneys for Social Security
What’s the Difference
Between SSDI and SSI
Disability Benefits?
You might have heard terms like SSD and SSI. What do they mean?
Social Security runs two different disability benefits programs. Both are for people who cannot work due to health problems, but they work in different ways:
- Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) provides monthly payments based partly on your income level when you worked. And it gets you into Medicare even before the usual eligibility age. You’re covered if you worked and paid enough taxes to have Social Security credits.
- Supplemental Security Income (SSI) provides monthly financial support based on a standard rate for everyone. It gets you into Medicaid. You don’t have to show past job history for SSI. SSI is for people with little income, savings or other financial means.
For SSI or SSDI help, talk to an experienced disability attorney. We can give you a complete understanding of which program you should apply for. (We don’t help you file for Medicare later, but we may be able to answer questions about your eligibility.)
Do you want to know if the Utah disability lawyers at Barnes Disability Advocates will take your case?
We try to help anyone who meets the basic requirements for benefits. Find out more by getting a free case evaluation from our team.
What Are the Steps to
Getting Social Security
Disability in Utah?
When you can’t work and your income has stopped, this is a financial emergency. You need help now.
But Social Security has thousands of rules to block people from wrongly getting benefits. That means you have to go through multiple steps.
These are the three major phases of your disability case:
- Determining if You Qualify: Is your medical condition covered by disability benefits? Does your work and financial situation qualify? Get one of our free case evaluations to find out where you stand.
- Applying for Disability: When you’re ready to apply, you have pages of forms to fill out, medical records to submit, work background to explain and more. A Social Security Disability lawyer helps you with the legwork.
- Appealing a Disability Denial: Remember all those rules to stop people from faking it? Well, they mean Social Security will also deny the vast majority of people at first. They make you appeal your denial, so you now have to present something more like an ironclad legal case to finally get approved. But it’s worth it in the end.
The rules make it far more likely that you’ll be denied benefits even though you deserve them than someone getting approved for benefits who doesn’t.
When you work with a disability lawyer, you pay no fee for your attorney until you win benefits, no matter how much work goes into your claim or how long it takes.
To be honest, some kinds of cases are better for lawyers to get paid in the end than others. But at Barnes Disability, we don’t shy away from cases that are tough to get approved or cases that might pay us smaller amounts.
We’re here to help anyone who could qualify for disability benefits get their best shot at financial relief and a fuller life.
What Are the Steps to Getting Social Security Disability
in Utah?
Barnes Disability also helps with long-term disability claims when you have a private insurance policy to protect your finances if you lose the ability to work. Our disability attorneys have decades of experience and a mission to help everyday people find peace and dignity in difficult times.
