How to Apply for Disability Benefits

What are the ways to apply for disability benefits?

There are three ways to apply: online, by phone, or in person at a local Social Security office by appointment. SSA's disability benefits publication directs Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applicants to apply online at ssa.gov/disability, or to call 1-800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., to schedule a telephone or in-person appointment.

Plan on at least an hour. SSA's publication says the appointment lasts about one hour, and its starter kit says the online application or interview may take at least one hour. Starting early matters, for reasons covered in the protective filing section below.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) works a little differently. SSA's SSI publication says you can begin the SSI application and complete a large part of it online. Some adults can apply for SSI and SSDI online at the same time: you must be between 18 and 65, never married, living in one of the 50 states, the District of Columbia or the Northern Mariana Islands, and not have applied for or received SSI before. Everyone else can call the same number to set an SSI appointment. If you are unsure which program fits, our comparison of SSDI and SSI covers the difference.

Before you apply for SSDI, it is worth a look at whether your work record still makes you insured. Our guide to work credits explains the 20/40 rule and the date last insured. Our applying for disability page covers how we help people through the application itself.

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What SSA asks for in a disability application

SSA asks for three kinds of information: who you are, what your medical treatment has been, and what work you did. Its Adult Disability Starter Kit includes a fact sheet, a checklist and a worksheet built around those questions.

The starter kit checklist asks you to have ready:

• Your date of birth, place of birth and Social Security number.
• The name, Social Security number and date of birth or age of your current spouse and any former spouses.
• A checking or savings account number and the bank's 9-digit routing number for direct deposit.
• Workers' compensation or other disability benefit details, including the date of injury and claim number, if they apply.
• Medical records you already have, plus the names, addresses and phone numbers of your health care providers.
• The medicines you take and why you take them, if known.
• The names and dates of medical tests you have had or have scheduled.
• A list of the jobs you held in the 5 years before you became unable to work.
• Your highest level of education and any specialized job, trade or vocational training, with dates.

SSA's disability publication adds a copy of your most recent W-2 form and names two forms that are part of the claim, the SSA-3368 and the SSA-827. The worksheet in the starter kit is for your own use, to gather the details SSA will ask for.

Missing pieces should not hold you up. The checklist says plainly: do not delay filing your application if you do not have or remember all of the information SSA requests, and SSA will help you get what is missing. The provider list matters more than almost anything else on it, because it tells the people deciding the claim where your medical evidence lives. A clinic left off the list is a record the DDS may never request.

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How a protective filing date protects your disability claim

A protective filing date lets SSA treat an earlier contact as the date you applied, as long as the full application follows within the time SSA allows. The regulations describe it as a way to prevent the loss of benefits.

Under 20 CFR 404.630, SSA uses the filing date of a written statement as the filing date of the application when the statement shows an intent to claim benefits and is signed by you, your spouse or another person allowed to sign for you. The same section lets SSA use the date of an internet transmission as the filing date when needed to prevent the loss of benefits.

SSA's operations manual, POMS GN 00204.010, spells out the online version. A protective filing date is established when you start an online application and provide contact information, and also when you schedule an initial claim appointment online. For SSI only, an oral inquiry about benefits can also set a protective filing date.

The protection does not last forever. For SSDI, the full application has to be filed within 6 months after the date of the notice SSA sends telling you to file. For SSI, 20 CFR 416.340 sets that window at 60 days after the notice. Miss the window and the earlier date is lost, so treat the notice as a deadline, not a reminder.

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What happens after you file a disability claim

After you file, your claim goes to two places in turn: a Social Security field office checks the non-medical rules, and a state Disability Determination Services (DDS) office makes the medical decision. SSA's page on the disability determination process lays out that split.

The field office verifies non-medical eligibility, which may include age, employment, marital status and Social Security coverage. It then sends the case to a DDS. The DDS offices are state agencies, fully funded by the federal government, that develop the medical evidence and make the initial determination. The DDS tries to get evidence from your own medical sources first, which is why the provider list you gave at filing carries so much weight.

Once the DDS decides, it returns the case to the field office. If you are found disabled, SSA completes any remaining non-disability development, computes the benefit amount and begins paying benefits. If you are found not disabled, the file stays at the field office in case you appeal.

A denial at this level is a stage of the process, not a verdict on whether you are disabled, and the next step has a clock. You have 60 days after you receive the notice to request reconsideration under 20 CFR 404.909. Our guide to the reconsideration stage covers that appeal, and our post on the five-step evaluation explains the questions the DDS applies to your file.

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