HOW LONG CAN DISABILITY BENEFITS LAST?

Once you are approved, your disability benefits will continue for as long as your remain disabled OR until you reach full retirement age.  At your full retirement age, disability benefits automatically convert to retirement benefits.  The amount of payment remains the same.  In fact, you won't even notice the switch.  It's something only government accountants will notice.  You don't need to do anything for this to occur.

This might be a good place to mention Continuing Disability Reviews or CDRs for short.

Social Security feels that many people with disabilities will improve over time to the point that they can work again.  Therefore, they perform CDRs about every two or three years, asking some beneficiaries to prove that they are still disabled.

Of course, if the government concludes that an individual is no longer disabled, they will discontinue disability payments.

What should you do, now that you are aware of Continuing Disability Reviews:

1.  See your doctor regularly and maintain compliance with medical treatment.  Most people who get in trouble with a CDR are people who are not getting regular treatment.  Social Security sees this as a sure sign that you are much improved.

2.  Appeal any decision to discontinue your benefits.  There are to ways to appeal, as follows:

•  File an appeal within 10 days and ask that your payments be continued pending the final outcome of the appeal.  Note:  If you eventually lose the appeal, Social Security will want these benefits repaid.
• File an appeal within 60 days and allow your payments to be suspended (stopped) during the appeal.  If you win the appeal, the government will pay you the money you missed during the appeal process. 

Working can also cause a lot of problems for individuals who receive Social Security disability.  Every dollar you earn is reported to Social Security by your employer.  If you earn more than the substantial gainful activity (SGA) threshold, Social Security will stop your disability payments and they may demand that you return any payments you received while you were working.  So, report any work that you do to Social Security right away.