This article was created to answer the question of: Can you get Social Security Disability after Workers’ Compensation settlement? The video above is recorded by Ty Wilson, a Georgia Workers’ Compensation Attorney practicing law in the state of Georgia. The topic in the video is, “Can you get Social Security Disability after you’ve resolved your workers’ compensation claim?” And the short answer is Yes. However, there are some warnings.
If you’ve settled your workers compensation claim, there are some things that you need to take into consideration. If you are potentially Social Security disability eligible, there’s what is called a Medicare set aside. This is a pretty complicated topic. However, what you should know is if you are close to retirement age and are going to be filing Social Security disability, you need to really talk to your attorney, or you should have an attorney if you’re going to be closing out that claim and you’re agreeing to settle it because typically speaking, you want to have what is called a Medicare set aside.
So why do you care about this Medicare set aside? Well, Social Security disability does not want to be picking up what is the responsibility of workers’ compensation insurance carriers. And so, what you have is you have a situation where Medicare wants Medicare set aside, put out to cover what the expenses are expected to be if Social Security Disability has to pick up this claim after the close of a workers compensation settlement. So it’s something that if you know that you’re injured seriously enough or you’re going to be seeking Social Security disability.
A lot of times in the settlement, it’ll say the claimant does not expect to file for Social Security disability within the next 30 months or something along those lines. And so it’s very important that if you actually are planning on filing Social Security disability and rather quickly after a workers’ compensation, settlement that you not necessarily sign that documentation until you’ve discussed with your attorney or with a Georgia Workers Compensation Attorney. What your options are and what could be required or needed to protect you and your interest in obtaining the Social Security disability benefits and obtaining the past due benefits, more importantly. So, there’s specific language that needs to go in the settlement documentation, and there may or may not be the need for a Medicare set aside.
The important thing for the attorneys is to make sure that Medicare interest is considered. And so that is kind of a vague topic. However, it’s important, depending upon the nature of the injuries of the claimant or the injured worker. What are the possibilities that this person will be filing for Social Security disability depending upon their injuries? Hope this information has been helpful. And if you have specific questions, you should always reach out to a Georgia Workers’ Compensation Attorney and speak with them about your specific situation. We’ll see you on the next video.
