Tips for Applying for Disability Benefits - YouTube

hello and welcome to today's video if you're new here my name is Meredith and

this is a channel about living life with and beyond a chronic illness

today we are gonna be talking all about how to get approved for disability benefits so

without further ado here are my five tips to securing disability benefits for

you or a loved one

tip number one is to be clear on the different kinds of

disability benefits

the first kind of disability benefit there is is SSDI or

Supplemental Security disability income this type of disability benefit is based

off of whether or not you have paid into your Social Security taxes so this means

that you've probably had to have a job for about five to ten years to have paid

into it enough in order to be eligible for it most people I know with a

disability well I guess maybe it's because I'm young but most people

actually don't qualify for this and a lot of people with disabilities think

that this is the one that they're going to get because they have a disability

and disability is in the name of it but um that's just not always the case so if

you are someone who is early in their career or hasn't started a career or

something like that you probably aren't going to qualify for

Social Security disability income but rather you're going to qualify for what

I qualified for which is SSI or Supplemental Security income and this

kind of disability benefit is based off of financial need the next thing that

you're going to want to do is to research where the Social Security

offices in your area and make an appointment because Social Security

doesn't cover transportation or provide any transportation for you you want to

make sure that you know exactly how you're getting to the Social Security office

also if you're a wheelchair user and are using public transportation be

sure to double check that the bus stop that you plan on getting off is going to

be wheelchair accessible just because it's the one closest to disability

office doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be

an accessible stop

I can tell you that from experience because I might have

been late to my appointment for that very reason

my next tip is to put

together a medical binder so if you don't already have a medical binder for

doctor's appointments you're going to want to put together a binder full of

your medical history so any test surgeries doctor's appointments that

you've had in the past year you're going to want to put those into a medical

binder and you're going to also want a list of any prescriptions that you are

currently taking because this step is so crucial to the process of applying for

disability if you would like me to go more into detail about how to make a

medical binder useful as opposed to cumbersome and overwhelming let me know

in the comments below and I can dedicate a whole video to making a great medical

binder that's useful and not stressful

my next tip is to gather all the things

that you're going to need for your disability appointment so this is going

to include the medical binder that we just talked about it's also going to

include your work history as well as any proof of marriage or children or veteran

status and the other important thing that you're going to need especially if

you are applying for SSI is that you're going to need proof of incomes so you're

going to need a bank statement you're going to need pay stubs and if you don't

have pay stubs you're going to need a letter from your employer stating how

much you make

my next tip is to bring someone with you because this

appointment is going to be really draining and if you have chronic fatigue

or if you have brain fog or anything like that that impedes your cognitive

function you're going to have a hard time getting through this appointment

and I can tell you from experience because I didn't have someone with me

and I really wish that I had so if you can bring

someone with you to help you and make sure that you are getting through all

the questions you're understanding what's being asked of you

my last tip is about when you're actually in your appointment now when

you're in your disability benefits appointment you're going to be asked a

lot of questions and the one thing that I want you to remember is that you are

applying for these benefits because you have a disability that prevents you from

being able to work or prevents you from being able to work enough to make a living

so in order for you to remain healthy you need to get these benefits

when you are being asked questions always think about what it's like on

your worst day and answer your questions as if it were your worst day

if that makes sense

so when people ask you how long can you stand for

think on my worst day how long can I stand

if it's zero minutes it's zero minutes

if it's five minutes it's five minutes

whatever it is tell them don't exaggerate and tell them

an amount that's less just tell them the amounts that it is on your worst day

also your disability appointment isn't the time to worry about being negative

about your disability

I know that this was something that was really hard for

me as a person who's generally pretty positive about my disability to write

all these things about how my disability has ruined my life and my disability has

taken away disability from me and impairs me from being able to do this

part of the job that I'm trained for got to be really negative but you just have

to realize that you have to do that in order to get these benefits and to have

the quality of life that you are trying to have

in the way that when you have a

job application you're trying to gloat about yourself as much as possible

when you're applying for disability you're going to want to complain about how much

it's ruined your life as possible

so on that note that's gonna wrap things up

for today's video

I hope you found it really helpful and definitely let me

know if you want me to do a video how to create a medical binder

and I will make that happen

thanks so much for watching today's video

if you enjoyed it definitely give this video a thumbs up and be sure to click

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videos I make the videos every Friday so I'll see you next week bye

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