If you become disabled again after your SSD benefits have stopped, you’ll need to reapply for disability based on your new medical condition. This is true even if your new disability is the same condition that qualified you for SSD benefits the first time around.
While submitting a new disability application is what’s required, there are some additional details you’ll need to understand about how this process works.
Whether you realize it or not, with your initial round of disability benefits, you were subject to the standard, five-month waiting period before the Social Security Administration (SSA) processed SSD payments for you. For most applicants, at least five months pass before they receive a determination on their eligibility anyway, so most never realize there’s a waiting period to begin with.
With a reinstatement of disability benefits – after becoming disabled again – there is no such waiting period. In other words, if you were previously receiving SSD benefits and are now disabled again, and no more than five years have passed since you were previously approved for benefits, then your new round of SSD payments will begin at the onset date of your newest disability.
Your new application for disability benefits may still take months to go through the review and approval processes. However, once your payments do commence, you’ll receive a lump sum of back benefits that dates to the onset of your most recent disability.
If it’s been longer than five years since you were previously approved for disability benefits, then the standard five-month waiting period will apply to your new disability claim. Again, disability applications can take months to go through the review and approval process, which means you’ll receive a lump sum payment of back benefits, if your claim is approved.
If you’re approved for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits, your lump sum payment will date back to five months from the onset of your most recent disability.
There is no waiting period for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), on the other hand, so if you’re receiving SSI benefits, your lump sum benefits received once your claim is approved, will date back to the onset of your most recent disability.
If your dependents are receiving SSD benefits based on your disability, the benefits they’re paid are also not subject to a waiting period. Again, the lump sum payment received once your new disability claim is approved will include back pay of benefits for your dependents dating to the onset of your latest or most recent disability.
