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Event ID: 2156571
Event Started: 5/24/2013 1:49:32 PM ET
Please stand by for realtime captions.
Hi, everybody. This is Kathy. We do have several folks on the phone. Looks like there are a few people on the website that haven't dialed in yet. I just put the number of their on the website to encourage people to dial in. We do need to have you call the phone to hear the presentation for the audio. So I think maybe we can get started. I'll have Leann do the introduction and then turn to our speaker Emma.
Welcome to the webinar. This is Leann. I just wanted to let everyone know that we will leave the phone lines open to allow you to ask questions. We should be a small enough group for that. If you could mute yourself so there isn't any background noise, that would be great and very much appreciated. If your phone line is noisy, we will mute it.So please note the number to unmute yourself is star 6. Star 6 will both mute and unmute you. Okay. So the webinar, will be recorded – and the recording will be sent to everyone who registered along with some follow-up materials. Our presenter today has sent us a helpful resource list that I will also include. And with that I would like to introduce everyone to Emma, who is going to be presenting today. The Access fund has had the pleasure of working with Emma this year. She is Certified as a community work [Indiscernible -- background noise] a history of working one-on-one with individuals with disabilities to achieve their goals and in particular, individuals who are on Medicaid. Emma stresses respect, self efficacy and ability over barriers. With that I will turn it over to her. Emma, are you there?
I am there. Thanks, Leann. All right. Let's get started. If you have any questions during the PowerPoint, definitely feel free to try and ask a question. It is about 32 slides. We're going to go over a lot of work incentives today. Let's get started with slide n umber 2. Basically we -- our community work incentive coordinators -- what that means is that we have a certification to do benefit counseling with individuals about federal, state and local benefits in relation to employment goals. We're pretty focused on the individuals we have worked with, working with individuals who are interested in reentering the workforce and are on benefits and have questions about how their benefits are going to interact with their employment. What we do is we provide confidential benefits planning services to individuals that are on Social Security disability-based benefits and also have a few contract, slide number 3, so we've provided benefits planning to individuals on Social Security disability-based benefits, clients of the Washington Access Fund, clients of Washington County DDD and a contract with the Department of services for the blind. We are working with individuals that are between 14 and retirement age. Live in the state of Washington. And our expertise is dealing with employment-based questions. We're looking for people that are ready and wanting to enter the workforce. We can also do presentations for providers, advocates, agencies, family members as well. We love to bring family members to the prospect especially if they are helping individuals make decisions so that everyone is included and informed and everyone knows what the options for individuals are looking to go back to work. So you can move on to slide four. There are two main types of Social Security disability-based benefits. Most of you probably know what they are. They are Supplemental Security Income and then Social Security Disability Insurance. And they are totally different, but individuals can receive these benefits at the same time. Unfortunately, they are so separate that even in the Social Security office, these two different sections don't even talk to each other, so they are completely separate and you should think of them as completely separate entities almost. They have different work i ncentives, respond differently to income, they have different health insurance affiliated with them and there's different timelines associated with each of these programs. Moving onto slide five, here's a layout of some of the differences between SSI and SSDI. SSI is a welfare program. It's more based and means tested. To get on SSI, basically it's considered a benefit of last r esort. So Social Security is going to want you to have tried to have exhausted every option for benefits before getting on SSI. So they want you to check to see if you are eligible for SSDI, eligible for any sort of cash benefits, before you can get on SSI. And it is a benefit that is used for shelter and food. That's primarily what it is for. The maximum amount for 2013 is 710. Every year that should go up with cost of living. Last year it was 698, it doesn't increase a whole lot unfortunately, but at least it does increase a little bit. SSI comes with Medicaid. SSI is impacted by all income or income support. If you are living rent free, that's going to impact how much your SSI payment --
Kelly is on.
If your mom goes out and buys you groceries and spends $100 for you and Social Security knows about that, they are going to count that and that's going to -- your SSI payment will be reduced because of that. And also any other cash that you have coming in, other cash benefits you might be on, if you are receiving both SSI and SSDI, the other cash amounts is going to impact the SSI benefit amount. So whatever resources, other income you have, that's going to impact the SSI. They count just about everything. For SSDI, the only thing they care about is your ability to work. That's the only thing that's going to impact it. In order to get SSDI you have to have radius work history and your benefit amount is going to vary depending on how much you paid into Social Security -- have previous work history. It's going to vary depending on what you paid in. SSDI comes with Medicare. And you either receive all or nothing. We're going to go into more detail on both of these benefits. This is an overview of the differences. We can move on to slide six.
Linda.
And with each of these programs there are different work i ncentives. As you can see on the left we have SSDI, the trial work period extended period of eligibility, subsidies, unsuccessful work attempt, and a bunch of others. And for SSI there is completely different work incentives, student earned income and -- inclusion, the blind work expense, property essential for self-support, totally separate work incentives for each of these programs. I can't emphasize enough how different these programs are, even though they are both housed under Social Security, they are completely different. We can move on to slide seven. We're going to take a look at SSDI, going to go more in depth with it and also look at a few of the work incentives that come with SSDI. Slide eight, SSDI like I said, requires previous work credit. And you can also get SSDI through a parent or deceased spouse's b enefit. You can pull from other people's benefits and that falls under the umbrella of SSDI. There's a five month waiting period for cash benefits. So say you had a stroke on May 22, this past Wednesday. You will have to wait, once you apply for SSDI, you have to wait June, July, August, September, and October until your eligible for your cash benefits, which would be November. They have that five month waiting period as a safety net to ensure that you actually have a disability that's going to last for a long duration of time. Once you go through that waiting period and your eligible for that benefit, then your Medicare starts 24 months later after that first month of entitlement. November -- if you had a stroke this last Wednesday and you have that waiting period and you became eligible for benefits in November,November 2015 is when he would be eligible for Medicare. It is actually more like 29 months because they are counting it from the date of entitlement. The date of entitlement is the first month your eligible for your Social Security disability cash benefit. Does that make sense? Does anyone have any questions? Okay. So Medicare of course there are three parts. The --
I have a question, yes I do. What's the question? Why are they waiting for two years to get the Medicare? I mean, that doesn't really seem right.
What are they supposed to be doing? What if they are sick in that amount of time? I'm not understanding why they have to wait for two years.
They don't actually give an answer on why they have that waiting period. It is really unfortunate that there is that waiting period and it's questionable on -- if that's even ethical, but unfortunately it's just kind of the way it is. So I wish I had a good answer. I wish I knew what the logic was behind that, but I don't.
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Moving on, for Medicare, you get part a which is catastrophic insurance. And then we have part B which you do have to pay a premium for unless you meet income eligibility for some additional programs. Part D, prescription drug. And then for SSDI there is no asset limits. They don't care how expensive your cars are, what kind of house you live in, how much you have in your bank account, if you win the lottery, they don't care. All they care about is your ability to work and earn from working. And they use something called the Substantial Gainful Activity rule to gauge your ability to work. We're going to go over that on slide nine. So Substantial Gainful Activity or SGA is something that's really heavily affiliated with SSDI and you'll probably hear that a lot if you are on SSDI or working with clients that are on SSDI. It's just the basic test that Social Security uses to establish disability status and measure the ability of someone to work at a substantial level. So they use a threshold amount to help measure if someone is working at a substantial level. For 2013, nonblind individuals, it is $1040 a month. For individuals that have blind determination by Social Security, it is 1740 a month. And SGA, some of the other pieces of SGA involves a ongoing pattern of work behavior. In order to be considered working at SGA level they want to see consistency, not just one month where you work over that 1040. It's a consistent ability to maintain that level of work activity. So if you do decide that you are working above SGA, your check can be terminated after -- unless you have different work incentives available for use which we will go over more in depth. Does anyone have any questions about SGA? It's a little bit more than that $1040 amount but that is the easiest way to think about --
Can you hear me?
Yeah. I got a question.
Sorry to interrupt again, I'm just wondering, this 1040, is that net or gross?
That is gross. Before taxes, before anything taken out. There are work incentives that can --
[Indiscernible -- multiple speakers] are there any other questions about SGA? Okay. We can move on to slide 10. So SSDI has some time-limited phases. The first phase, the trial work period, and after the trial work period there's a phase called the extended period of eligibility. Then there's this other little odd piece that is the cessation and grace period. We'll go over these in depth. We can talk about the trial work period on slide 11. The trial work period is a nine-month phase that basically allows you to earn an unlimited amount without having any impact to your benefit. In order to trigger the use of one of these trial work period months, [Indiscernible -- multiple speakers] in 2013. So if you are earning $700 a month, Social Security does not care. You still want to let them know you are working but until you are using up your trial work period, they could care less about those earnings. And then once you use those nine months, they don't have to be consecutive, you can break them up, if you have -- working a seasonal job, perhaps only in the summer and you will use three months each summer, and for a period of years until you accumulate nine months within a five-year window. Once you get all nine months, within a five-year window, they have been used up, that work incentive. Sometimes people can really [Indiscernible -- background noise] if you used four of them up in 2005 and you started working this year, you technically have nine months available because that's more than five years ago so they are not going to count those trial work period months anymore. That's kind of nice. You can spread these out and take your time and use them as you see fit. You can also do some sort of strategic planning with your trial work period months as well. Since you can have unlimited earnings potential when you have the trial work period months. Are there any questions about the trial work period? Okay. So we can move on to phase two on slide 12. This is the extended period of eligibility. So after you use your trial work period months, the month following your extended period of eligibility starts. You can't start or stop this. Once it starts, it keeps going for 36 months and it starts the month immediately following that trial work period months. So the 36 month period basically allows you to keep your SSDI eligibility even if you are earning over that $1040 SGA amount. You cannot be terminated from Social Security or SSDI due to work while you are in this phase. If you medically improve, you can be terminated but you cannot be terminated solely based on working. It is just a protection that allows you to continue working and seeing if it is sustainable and how long you can do it. If for some reason you work for two years and then your medical condition -- something happens and you can no longer work at that same level, you have to call up Social Security and let them know that you are not working or that you reduce your hours and you are no longer making about that $1000 -- that 1040 amount. They will give you the check back that next month. All it takes is a phone call during the extended period of eligibility. There's also quite a few work incentives that you can use during this extended period of e ligibility. Are there any questions about 36 months -- you can't be terminated. You can -- your cash benefit can be paused. If it gets paused, but you're earnings dip below that 1040, you can just call Social Security in the next month. You will have that cash benefit back [Indiscernible -- background noise] are there any questions? So we can move on to slide 13. We're going to go over a few of the tools that Social Security, during this time, is going to used to make an SGA decision. There's a number of different work incentives that can be used during this extended period of eligibility and even after it. These can only be used after your trial work period because during the trial work period, does not matter how much you earn. Unlimited amount of earnings and it won't impact your cash benefit at all. You don't need to the work incentives during that time period but when you are in a the extended period of eligibility and after, you might want to try to maintain that cash benefit. There are these other work incentives that will allow you to keep your cash benefit and stay under the 1040 threshold while still working. The other thing is always work incentives, Social Security is going to want proof. Make sure you are documenting everything. There's a list at the bottom of the different work incentives. We're only going to go over about four of them. It's kind of a lot. We can start with the first one, retirement related work expense is on flow -- on slide 14. -- impairment related. Correlated with a diagnosis or a medical condition being treated by a physician. So you actually have to have a physician note I guess or have to be a condition that is documented. Some of the most common things we see our out-of-pocket expenses for prescriptions, so if you are paying out-of-pocket for any sort of prescription if you save that receipt and u-turned in at the end of each month, if you are earning $1200 a month and you have $300 in prescription costs, if you turned in those receipts, you would be able to earn that $1200 a month and keep your Social Security is disability cash benefit because those $300 would drop you're earnings below that 1040 down to 900. It works as a deduction. The only things that can count as well are so -- the other things that can count our service animals. Food, vet bills, you have to keep the receipt --