Fastest Way to Apply for Social Security Disability Benefits

The fastest way to apply for Social Security disability benefits for most claimants is going to be online. My name is Kaitlin Wildoner, and I’m an attorney who helps disabled individuals obtain their disability benefits as quickly as possible so they can focus on getting better. Today we’re going to talk about how to quickly apply for Social Security Disability benefits online.

Apply for Social Security Disability Directly with SSA

First, I tell everybody this, you want to make sure you are on the official Social Security Administration website, not another website! The website is ssa.gov, and you want to make sure you’re on that website because you are giving a lot of private information. You will need to provide your Social Security number, your date of birth, your work history, your conditions, your doctors, all sorts of private information that you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands. You want to make sure that you are on the official ssa.gov website, and that it has that little lock that we often see up in the address bar to know that you are on the secure Social Security website.

Prepare for the Social Security Disability Application

Another thing that’s going to make it go a little bit quicker is if you have a list of all of your treating doctors, clinics, and hospitals that you have seen related to your conditions. You want to do this because that’s important for Social Security to know. They’re going to need to know where you have been seen, they need to know the doctors that you see, the clinics that you see, any hospitalizations that you’ve had. They also need to know which location you have seen the doctor. For example, if you have a doctor that has four different offices, which location were you seen at, what is the phone number? When were you first seen by that office, when were you most recently seen by that office, and do you have another appointment scheduled? Those are all important things and if you have a list of ready to go, you’ll be able to quickly input that information into your disability application.

You may even want to add providers prior to the date you became disabled. Social Security will sometimes look at a year prior to the onset date because, especially if it’s a condition that, over the course of time, you just kept wearing your body down and wearing it down, those supportive records sometimes that can be helpful.

Have a Resume Handy (if you have one!)

You also want have a list of all of the jobs that you’ve done in the last 15 years. This list should include when you started and stopped, what your job title was, where you worked, and what your rate of pay was. It’s okay to estimate these. If you don’t remember the exact start date, the exact stop date, the exact rate of pay, it’s not a big deal, it’s okay to estimate that. Also, if you work for the same company, but you did a few different jobs, for example… let’s say you worked for Publix and you started as a bagger and you move to a cashier, and then you became an assistant manager, those would be three separate jobs that you want to tell Social Security about.

It’s also expected that if you work there for any length of time, you may have received a raise. It’s okay to estimate the end pay if you don’t know what it was. When I do that, I’ll also go back and make a note in the application saying when I started my pay was around here, and when I ended, it was around here, just to give Social Security and idea of what they’re looking at as far as what to expect on the IRS transcripts they receive.

Social Security Application Will Ask for Banking Information

If you have a bank account where you want to receive your disability benefits, have that information ready as well as Social Security does ask for it in the application. This goes back to number one, wanting to make sure that you are on the Social Security Administration’s website, because you don’t want to be giving just anybody your banking information.

Social Security Disability Attorney

If you are disabled and unable to work, if you have additional questions, schedule an initial call here or call us directly for a free consultation where we can discuss your case and what I can do to help you.