Hi I’m Sharon Christie your nurse attorney for Social Security disability benefits. I am frequently asked about the effect of workers compensation on a Social Security disability claim and it’s a great question. So, if you’ve been injured on the job you may be filing or have already filed a worker’s compensation case and at the same time if you are not improving from your injury. Or if your injuries leaving you with severe limitations you may be thinking about whether you can file a Social Security disability claim.  

So, let’s talk about the two different kind of claims in workers compensation they have their own standard of what it means to be disabled and they have different levels of disability. Now I’m not a worker’s comp lawyer but I’ve read enough of the reports and the records to know that there are different levels of disability. There can be permanent, partial, or temporary permanent and I couldn’t define that for you because I’m no expert in this field, but I also know that as part of that workers compensation process you will have doctors that will assign you different percentages of disability for different body parts. Now, that’s how the workers compensation case works and that’s how the whole resolution of the case works. It depends on you know what’s wrong with you that’s related to your job injury specifically and what level of disability you have because of it and do you have any what they call permanency rating. That’s where you’re given a percentage of permanent disability for certain body parts. So, they have their whole entire system that works around those types of definitions. 

Social Security disability of course is very different. Social Security disability is not limited certainly if you follow the case because you got injured on the job. It’s not limited to looking just at what happened to you while you were working. That particular injury Social Security will look at all of your conditions or injuries but the definition of disabled of course is very different under Social Security disability. You have to prove that the limitations you have from all of your health problems are so severe there’s absolutely no job at all that you can do. Now there’s something else you need to bear in mind with regard to workers compensation and Social Security disability.

There is some interplay between the two if you are awarded benefits under both systems and basically there is a limit as to how much money you can recover if you have both claims going at the same time. How that plays out is that you may well have some of your disability money if you’re approved for disability. Some of that may actually have to get paid back to your workers compensation and sure if they have paid you for disability for the same time frame it gets complicated but that’s always in play if you are having a worker’s compensation case and you’re working with your lawyer and you’re going to agree to a settlement of that case.  

There’s specific language that should be in your settlement agreement that relates to Social Security disability if you are going to file for that or if you might file for it in the future. Now, you need to talk to your workers compensation lawyer about that to make sure that the correct language is in your settlement agreement but there is language that can be put in the settlement agreement that specifically addresses what will happen if you are approved for Social Security disability and how any payback to the workers compensation insurance company is going to work. So, be aware of that and make sure you talk to you or cut the workers comp lawyer about it before you settle any worker’s comp case.