Upcoming Events!  

Gartlan Center---Formerly Mt. Vernon Center for Community Mental Health

Sheri Abrams will be speaking on Social Security and Trusts at the Gartlan Center on June 12.

Lupus Foundation of America

Sheri Abrams will be presenting a webinar on Social Security Disability Benefits as part of the "Lupus, Learn from the Experts" series of educational webinars.  This webinar will take place on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 from 2pm - 2:40pm Eastern Standard Time.

To register for this free webinar or for more information click here.

Share this Newsletter

Join Our List

See Our Previous Email Newsletters

Greetings! 

Welcome to our newsletter.

You may have been added to our e-mail newsletter mailing list if you have been in contact with Sheri R. Abrams, Attorney at Law or the Law Firm of Needham Mitnick & Pollack, PLC.

These monthly newsletters are designed to show you how not to gamble with your or your patients/clients Social Security Disability and/or SSI benefits.  We also provide you with information on Special Needs Planning.

You may unsubscribe by clicking on the link at the end of this e-mail.

The Social Security Administration has just announced the availability of an online version of the Social Security Statement. The new online Statement provides eligible workers with secure and convenient access to their Social Security earnings and benefit information. The online Statement also provides estimates for disability and survivors benefits.

In addition to helping with financial planning, the online Statement also provides workers a convenient way to determine whether their earnings are accurately posted to their Social Security records. This feature is important because Social Security benefits are based on average earnings over a person's lifetime. If the earnings information is not accurate, the person may not receive all the benefits to which he or she is entitled.

The online Statement also provides the opportunity to save or print the personalized Statement for financial planning discussions with family, a financial planner or a law firm such as Needham Mitnick & Pollack, plc.

To get a personalized online Statement, people age 18 and older must be able to provide information about themselves that matches information already on file with Social Security. In addition, Social Security uses Experian, an external authentication service provider, for additional verification.

People must provide their identifying information and answer security questions in order to pass this verification. Social Security will not share a person's Social Security number with Experian, but the identity check is an important part of this new verification process.

Once verified, people will create a "My Social Security" account with a unique user name and password to access their online Statement. In addition, the portal also includes links to information about other online services, such as applications for retirement, disability and Medicare.

It is important to note, however, that Social Security anticipates some workers will not be able to be verified through this process.  Some people may not correctly answer the security questions based on information on file with Experian, and others may supply identifying information that does not match their Social Security records.  In instances where this occurs, people will have the option to request a paper Social Security Statement be mailed to them.

People who cannot verify online initially also may visit their local Social Security office and present identification in order to create an account and gain access to the online version of the Statement.

In February 2012, Social Security resumed mailing paper Statements to workers age 60 and older if they are not already receiving Social Security benefits. Later this year, the agency plans to mail paper Statements to workers in the year they reach age 25.

For more information or to request your online statement, please visit:

www.socialsecurity.gov/mystatement

Electronic Medical Records Will Reduce Time for a Social Security Disability Decision

The Social Security Administration and the Department of Defense (DoD) are now working together to improve access to disability benefits for the nation's Wounded Warriors, service members, veterans, and their dependents.  A new nationwide program enables Social Security disability case processing sites to receive military medical records from multiple DoD facilities with a single request to a centralized DoD site.  As of April 30, 2012, this initiative is in its first phase of nationwide expansion.

Originally a pilot, the program included five states (Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington) and more than 60 military treatment facilities. These states are now receiving electronic medical records within 72 hours, a great improvement over the previous average response time of five weeks for paper records from individual military treatment facilities.

The new DoD-Social Security collaboration consolidates requests for medical records from Social Security to a single location that has access to DoD records in a central electronic repository.

The benefits of the new process include:

* faster delivery of DoD medical records to Social Security;

* a more efficient system to obtain records;
 

* a reduction in the time it takes to make a medical decision on a disability claim; and
 

* a reduction in the number of consultative examinations (medical exams requested by Social Security when additional tests or medical records are needed.) 

For more information on this program visit:

 www.socialsecurity.gov/hit 

Sheri Abrams' Book "Don't Gamble With Your Social Security Disability Benefits--What Every Virginia Resident Needs To Know To Win A Social Security Disability Case" Is Available.

"Don't Gamble With Your Social Security Disability Benefits--What Every Virginia Resident Needs To Know To Win A Social Security Disability Case" is now available for the Nook

here.

and the Kindle here.

OUR OFFICE LOCATION

REFERRALS