What is your Onset Date? In Social Security Disability your onset date is very important. You are telling the Social Security Department that this is the day you became disabled. Many times at or before a hearing I will discover that a client has by mistake, put down the wrong date for disability, if you do not claim disability the very day you stop working, it may be hard to determine your onset date looking backwards, that is why I review your onset very carefully.
As an attorney I review your medical records and earning records to determine your onset date for Social Security Disability purposes. Sometimes in reviewing these records I discover that the medical records do not match up with the onset date. When I see an onset date that does not match the medical records, I will ask the Judge to allow us to change the onset date, your medical records must be in close proximity to your disability date, meaning your records must show this is when you were unable to continue working. By changing the onset date to match your medical records it allows the Judge to possibly grant you disability, without it the Judge may not be able to properly document the date of your disability which can bring a host of problems for your claim.
The onset date can also be affected by your earnings, sometimes a person will show some earnings via the IRS when they are claiming to be unable to work, there are usually good explanations for this, sometimes it involves vacation pay, sick pay, and family leave pay. It is important to be able to explain this income, because it can have dire consequences on your disability claim should you not be able to explain it, and one of those consequences can be your date of disability or onset date that you are claiming be changed, or denial of your disability claim.
Under the Social Security Disability Act you can go back only 17 months from your application, to claim your onset date, meaning if you file your claim on March 1st, 2008, you can only backwards 17 months to claim your onset date or date you claim to have become disabled.
Should you need assistance in your Disability Claim, please give me a call at toll free 1 (877) 271-2633, or local at (615) 308-2633.
Daniel L. McMurtry, Esq.