social security: more info from the lawyer

[redbird]

Mostly for my reference:

The lawyer called me this morning, and told me that there's a five-month waiting period for benefits between the date that they say I became disabled. That puts us in spring of 2022, so the retroactive lump sum will be about 28 months' benefits. His guess is that will be about $42,000, with a net of about $35,000 after the 20% for his fee.

It has been more than two years since the date they know/acknowledge I was disabled, so I am immediately eligible for Medicare. By default, they will enroll me, and take the premiums out of the monthly benefit payment. He recommends enrolling now, because if I wait they will charge more when I do start taking it, but emphasized that this isn't legal advice. So, one thing I/we need to do is check which of my doctors do or don't accept Medicare, and what limits there are on that.

Since I will be collecting these benefits immediately, I can wait until the maximum age for starting to take Social Security retirement benefits, maximizing my eventual monthly benefit from that.

Check whether doctors take Medicare (and if so, does it matter which plan?): primary care doctor does take at least some Medicare plans. To check: eye doctor, lung doctor, neurologist, psychologist [anything else I'm not thinking of].

Unrelatedly, I should call the MS nurse and ask whether I should keep the January appointment with the neuropsychologist, since that was originally intended to help support the disability appeal.

Comments

[cmcmck]

And lord knows why it took them so long!

[redbird]

Two answers, one more cynical than the other: the less cynical is that my lawyer told me they'd had a hiring freeze for years before the pandemic, and haven't done well training new people in the last few years.

The more cynical is that the hiring freeze is part of systematically underfunding and understaffing those offices, in the hope that people will give up rather than pursue multiple appeals, die waiting, or get old enough to collect ordinary social security retirement benefits. People are more willing to think "I'm going to be old enough to collect this some day, it should be there" than that they may become too disabled to work before they reach what they think of as retirement age.

[carbonel]

I had to do a lot of research about Medicare options, and would be happy to pass on some of the information I learned, if that would be useful.

[redbird]

Thank you, I may get back to you on this.

[bibliofile]

Congrats on having a positive outcome for this onerous process.

[ranunculus]

Think carefully about "maximizing Social Security". There is a crossover point with Social Security where the amount you would be paid if you start getting payments earlier is more; if you die before that date; than what you earn by waiting. For me I would wait until I was in my late 80's to earn more by waiting. Also my financial advisor was very cynical about whether Social Security would last in its current form. My financial advisor also knew that if I really needed cash I could sell property to raise money and took that into account.

[redbird]

Thank you. I'm sixty, so I have a couple of years to look into the question, but the disability benefits mean that I will be getting money each month, even if I wait to transition to Social Security retirement benefits.

[ethelmay]

SocSec is a single pool, so women are on average slightly favored. But it's supposed to be that *on average* it comes out the same whether you wait or don't. The trouble is that the people who need higher payments more can usually least afford to wait. My husband and I are in the situation where the extra money is significant, yet we can also afford to wait, *and* we both have long-lived relatives and no major health concerns yet, so it's likely at least one of us will benefit (as it affects survivor benefits as well - the likelihood that one of us will see 90 is greater than that either as an individual would). But that is not terribly common. Still, it's a stepped benefit, so if you decide along the way you can't wait any longer, you can start then and get more in proportion to how long you delayed. (I expect you know all this already.)

[sine_nomine]

I was coming here to say what, essentially, ranunculus said. Additionally, you can likely invest what you get from Social Security at a favorable rate - which would likely give you more than you would have drawn with the regular monthly checks.

[adrian_turtle]

Waiting until you're in your late 80's really is not an option. You're allowed to start collecting at 62.5, and there's no advantage in waiting past age 70. So it's a question of maximizing within that range.

[ethelmay]

I think ranunculus meant that the tipping point where the higher payments would add up to more money overall was into late eighties. So the projected total payments from ages 70-87 would equal the projected total lower payments from 67-87, or something like that.

[ranunculus]

Oops, 80's was a typo. I believe you have to take it by age 70.
I had to start at 65 when my job vanished due to Covid.

[redbird]

If the eventual letter from the Social Security people doesn't discuss/explain this, I will look into it.

[catherineldf]

Congratulations on getting through the process. It took almost two years to get my wife through to state-level disability and it was painfully bureaucratic.