WHAT CAN STOP YOUR DISABILITY BENEFITS?

Social Security disability (SSDI) benefits continue as long as you are disabled under the Social Security rules and are not working.

However, there are some things that will terminate your SSDI benefits:

* You begin working at substantial gainful activity. In 2024 this means you earn wages or self employment income of $1,550 per month or more before tax.

* You are determined to be no longer disabled due to medical improvement.

* You become incarcerated for 30 consecutive days or more.

My office is frequently contacted by individuals who owe money to the Social Security Administration, sometimes a large sum of money. This happens when individuals continue to receive and cash Social Security checks that they no longer qualify for. This happens when a person returns to work at "substantial gainful activity" and doesn't notify Social Security. Even if they do notify Social Security but the disability checks keep coming and keep getting cashed, it creates an over payment that Social Security will one day want repaid. Social Security may not immediately stop your disability checks if you begin working. However, they are bound to find out eventually and when they do they will want all over-payments returned. This can create quite a trauma for individuals who cannot repay the money, especially if it's thousands of dollars. If you receive Social Security disability payments and start working, you must inform Social Security. Whether your earnings will stop your SSDI benefits or not depends on the amount of your gross earnings per month.

Social Security frequently performs 'Continuing Disability Reviews' (CDRs) to determine whether recipients are still disabled under agency rules. If they determined that there has been substantial medical improvement and the recipient no longer meets the rules for disability, benefits can be terminated. A notice will be sent out before benefits are terminated. The decision to terminate checks can be appealed, but only within a specified time frame. The best defense to a CDR is to keep seeing your doctor(s) and continue to follow medical advice.

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Charles W. Forsythe is founder of The Forsythe Firm in Huntsville and is happy to help persons seeking Social Security disability. However, we do not handle Continuing Disability Reviews (CDRs).