Tampa, Florida
Tampa Disability Lawyers for SSDI and SSI
Downard & Associates represents adults in Tampa, Florida, with Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims. We help with applications, reconsideration appeals, and administrative hearings, working with clients by phone or video. Start with the dates your condition changed your ability to work and the providers who treated you. We can help prepare the application, gather medical evidence, or address the reasons for a denial.
How we help
Preparing a Tampa Claim With Downard
We do not take disability cessation or continuing disability review cases, or new cases involving back-pay issues alone.
For an SSDI application, we help gather medical evidence, document your work history, and complete the application. For SSI, we also help complete the financial disclosures. Medical records describe your condition and treatment. Work history helps explain the demands of your jobs; SSI disclosures document income and resources.
At reconsideration, we address the reasons for denial and add missing evidence. If your appeal reaches an administrative law judge, we develop the medical record, prepare you for testimony, and present the argument supporting your claim at the hearing. Our Social Security hearing-office guide provides a separate reference for office details.
We represent adults age 18 and older and work with Tampa clients by phone or video. Our Florida disability representation page explains our statewide service.
Our service limits also address matters involving Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits.
We handle SSDI cases for people who currently receive VA benefits, but we do not handle VA claims or appeals. We do not take disability cessation or continuing disability review cases, or new cases involving back-pay issues alone. We refer federal court appeals to a trusted affiliate rather than handling them in-house.
Benefit eligibility
SSDI and SSI Rules for Adults in Tampa
Duration rule
12months
SSDI generally requires enough recent work covered by Social Security. The work-credit requirements depend on your age when your disability began. Read the Social Security Administration's (SSA) disability eligibility guidance for the insured-work rules.
SSI does not require an insured work record. Adults may qualify based on disability, statutory blindness, or age 65 or older, subject to income, resource, and other requirements such as qualifying citizenship or immigration status and residence. Statutory blindness means blindness under SSA's legal definition. Age-based SSI does not require a disability finding. SSA explains these categories in its SSI eligibility guidance.
For SSDI and adult SSI claims based on disability, SSA considers whether a medically determinable condition prevents substantial gainful activity (SGA). SGA is work involving significant physical or mental activities that is done, or usually done, for pay or profit. When the evaluation reaches those steps, SSA also considers past work and your ability to adjust to other work. The condition and the resulting inability to perform SGA must generally have lasted or be expected to last at least 12 consecutive months, unless the condition is expected to result in death. You do not have to wait a year before applying.
For initial SSI eligibility based on statutory blindness, SSA does not use SGA, and SSI statutory blindness has no duration requirement. Financial and other SSI requirements still apply. These exceptions do not remove the separate SSDI rules. See SSA's SSI rule for people who are blind and working and its SSI eligibility guidance for these distinctions.
Local treatment records
Tampa General and USF Health Records for Your Claim
Identify the records you need rather than assuming the images and written report are the same item.
If you received care through Tampa General Hospital (TGH), its medical-records instructions explain how an active MyChart user can request additional records through the Sharing Hub using the formal health-record request form. You can also complete the personal-access form and return it by email, fax, or mail.
TGH's patient-access form asks for treatment dates and lets you select specific records, including emergency-room reports, discharge summaries, progress notes, and laboratory reports. Radiology reports and radiology images/CD are separate selections. Identify the records you need rather than assuming the images and written report are the same item.
For USF Health visits, its health-records page offers an online request or a completed, signed Release of Information form sent by fax. If your care included both a TGH hospital visit and a USF Health clinic visit, list each treatment source and date range separately. Use the instructions for the provider holding the records you need.
Get organized
Build a Treatment Timeline for Your Tampa Claim
Use one line for each treatment source. Then compare your list with the documents you already have. This helps you identify missing visits before discussing the evidence for your claim.
Provider and dates: For each hospital, practice, doctor, or therapist, record the name, contact information, and approximate dates of your first and most recent visits. Identify TGH and USF Health care separately when both were involved.
Records to check: Note which visit notes, discharge summaries, and test reports you have, what is missing, and when you requested it. For TGH imaging, distinguish the written report from images/CD.
Work changes: List recent jobs and dates. Describe the lifting, sitting, standing, concentration, or other duties your condition affected and when those changes began.
Daily limits: Write specific examples of tasks you cannot finish, breaks you need, and help you receive. Include how often the problem occurs and any medication side effects you experience.
Claim information: Keep SSA requests and decisions together. Record when a decision arrived. For SSI, also organize income and resource information.
SSA's disability application instructions explain the medical and work information to gather. For SSDI, SSA says not to delay applying because you do not have every document.
After a denial
Responding to an Initial Denial in Tampa
Deadline
60days
After an initial SSDI or SSI denial, reconsideration generally must be requested in writing within 60 days after you receive the notice. SSA presumes receipt five days after the notice date unless you show that you did not receive it within that five-day period. Keep the notice date and actual arrival date separate.
If you miss the reconsideration deadline, request an extension in writing and explain the delay. SSA must find good cause to grant more time; an extension is not automatic. The SSDI reconsideration rule and SSI reconsideration rule explain the requirements.
Read the reason for denial before deciding what to add. A missing treatment record, a question about SSDI work-credit eligibility, and an SSI financial issue call for different responses. At reconsideration, we focus on the reasons SSA gave and the evidence needed to address them.
Common questions
Tampa Questions About Records and Disability Claims
Can I request TGH records without using MyChart?
Yes. TGH provides a personal-access form that can be completed and returned by email, fax, or mail. Its medical-records page links the form and explains the available methods.
Are a radiology report and the scan images the same request?
TGH's patient-access form lists radiology reports and radiology images/CD separately. Specify which records you need and the dates of treatment. Ask the records department if you are unsure which selection matches your request.
Should I wait for records before applying for SSDI?
No. SSA says not to delay an SSDI application because you do not have all the documents. Provide the information and records you have and identify your treatment sources. Its application instructions explain what to prepare.
Can Downard help if I have already applied?
Yes. We help adults at reconsideration and administrative hearings as well as with applications. Tell us what SSA has decided so we can discuss the work needed at your current stage.
Discuss your claim
Discuss Your Tampa Disability Claim With Downard
Tell us how your condition has affected your work and whether you are applying or appealing a decision. We can discuss the application or appeal work you need and meet with you by phone or video.