SSDI review

I am due to be reviewed by SSDI for continuation of benefits in about 18 months according to my award letter.
I have consistently seen a pdoc monthly and take the same amount of meds with an additional anti-psychotic.
I see my T every two weeks.
My condition has not improved as I am now having additional visual and auditory hallucinations. My pdocs records reflect this.
My award letter says I will get a letter from SSA telling me what to do for the review.

I am currently under review for my private disability insurance. I have no idea how that will go. We called our SSDI lawyer to ask him about the private review. He said to only contact him if we were denied.

What do you do if you don't get a letter? Do you ignore it or call to ask for the review?
Has anyone else been reviewed for either SSDI or private insurance? How did it go? Thanks.

i was reviewed for SSDI this year. they sent me a very long form with a lot of detailed questions. they also sent me one for someone in my treatment team to fill out about me. i sent my pdocs records and a letter from my therapist too. it took a few months until i heard back that i was still eligible to receive my benefits. i still got my benefits while i was under review.

Thanks a lot! Am glad you got approved.

It was so many years ago.....I don't remember much about that period of my life....sort of my black hole....but they got it set up at that time for it to be permanent & I haven't heard back.....at this point, I'm 61.....& in a few years it's going to just automatically transition over to social Security at the same rate of pay......something I was looking up the other day out of curiosity & that was when I found out about the payee that social security can assign....something I have been trying to get for my STBXH who is financially incompetent of taking care of himself.....so I was able to find out sever things from the social security site....maybe they have some information on the review process.....I wasn't looking for it so I didn't notice....but it's a good place to look.

I would suggest that you talk with your treatment team & see if they can't get it changed over to permanent since you are having such a bad time right now.

I was told in the beginning that they would contact me for the SSDI reviews and to wait until contacted; you can confirm this though with your local social security office or online at their website in case this has changed. That said, I was told in the beginning like you that I would be contacted in 18 mos but it turned out to be 26 mos later that I got my first review, and then, in a total of 14 years now, I have had 2 reviews.

I did not have improvement in my status during this time, however, which might be what the difference is as there are set periods of time established for the reviews whether you are deemed temporarily or permanently disabled (see online or with your local ofc, I think it is 3 years for temporary disability and 7 years for permanent). This will be changing for me now that my status has changed and am attempting to return to work; we'll see what happens.

I have always been contacted by letter with a form to complete but know of others that have gotten a notice in the mail to set up a phone interview, that asks the same questions as the written form. It is a fairly simple and straight forward process, nothing arduous like the application process.

If concerned, I would verify the procedure as whether to wait for SS to contact you or you to contact SS about when you have a review. I have stuck by the original instructions of waiting for them to contact me but this may have changed; I should find out myself too.

Hoping all goes well with the private disability insurance meanwhile.

I've been on SSDI since 2004 and I was reviewed in 2010. It's just a questionnaire and you fill it out with your Dr. At the end it asks for any additional comments and you can write about your treatment, personal history, etc. yourself in detail and explain problems you are still dealing with. If you haven't had any improvement don't worry about the review - you'll continue getting SSDI. I heard from SSA within a month after sending the form back to them and they had no problem continuing my SSDI.

also: make sure u are very detailed with your answers. use more paper if needed.

I've been on SSDI for many years and have had 2 reviews. Being me, I had major anxiety about these. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. In fact, the last one was a preliminary form filled out by me to determine if they needed to do a full review. They didn't. The first review was more involved. It was done after 5 years, which according to the local office was a mistake; it should've been sooner.

There is one thing you can do to help make the whole experience easier: Keep a log of appointments, tests, diagnoses & flare-ups and meds. Have all that info in one place that you can remember so that when the review comes up, you won't be scrambling to find EOBs, doctor bills and old calendars.

Hope that when your review does come, it goes well.

Take care.

That's a heck of an attitude your lawyer is handing you, but I totally believe that's how some disability lawyers can be.

I have no personal experience to give me insight into what you are dealing with. I'm on SSDI for just two years now, but I am old enough that I'm not ever going to be subject to a review of my disability status. My understanding is that the younger you are, the more anxiety you are justified in having about pending reviews.

Hang on to any and all letters you get from SSA. If it tells you to expect another letter, then that's what I would do, trusting that it will arrive. I'm finding that things you are expecting can be quite a while in coming. (I am finding this out with issues pertaining to my Medicare and SSDI.)

Having a doctor who is supportive of you continuing on disability is one of the best things you can have going for you, and it sounds like you do have that. Plus, you are compliant with your treatment.