Frauds Target Seniors’ Social Security Disability Benefits

According to recent reports, senior citizens’ social security disability benefits are the latest targets of scams after the Social Security Administration (SSA) redirected the recipients’ payments to their electronic accounts to abide by the agency’s new regulation to stop sending paper checks, according to the agency’s Inspector General, Patrick O’Caroll.

During a Congressional hearing last week, O’Caroll explained how frauds make their way in stealing the recipients’ disability payments. He said that frauds usually get the victim’s personal information and bank account details by luring seniors to lottery scams that ask victims to spill out such personal details in order to claim big prizes.

Subsequently, upon getting the victim’s bank account number and other personal information, frauds, pretending as the account owner, will then contact the SSA and request their payments to be rerouted into another bank account number.

Incidentally, as of August 31, the agency’s inspector general office received more than 19,000 reports of questionable changes or attempted changes to a beneficiary‘s direct deposit information and each day, it still continues to receive 50 similar reports.

However, in a statement released by the SSA’s spokesman, Mark Hinkle, the said figure only accounts for only a tiny proportion of the 711 million payments that the agency made electronically over the same period. In fact, many of the said reports are a result of typing errors and not scams, Hinkle added.

Fortunately, Hinkle’s statement was backed by Identity Theft 911, a company helping identity theft victims. According to the company’s investigators, they started hearing about the reports of this kind of scam only recently. So far, there are only six instances of frauds rerouting social security disability benefits onto prepaid cards, according to Identity Theft 911.

Nevertheless, the SSA should be more vigilant when verifying a recipient’s identity when making changes to his or her electronic account, suggested by a Los Angeles social security claim lawyers.

People with Serious Mental Illnesses Have Increased Risk of Cancer Resulting to Disability

In a recent report released by the Medline Plus, it stated that a new study suggested that people with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have increased risk of cancer, which could eventually lead to permanent disability.

The research found out that the risk of cancer for those people with severe mental disorder is 2.6 times higher than those mentally healthy people. However, the study also noted that the condition could be a result of any of the following:

•    Not receiving preventive care;
•    Not reducing or totally cutting out cancer risk practices like smoking; and
•    Not undergoing regular cancer screenings.

According to the said research, people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder were 3 times more possible to have breast cancer, 3.5 times more possible to have colon cancer, and more than 4.5 times possible to have lung cancer in the future.

The researchers likewise speculated that the increased risk of breast cancer to women with severe mental illnesses could be linked to the fact of not having children since childbearing is believed to be a factor that reduces the risk of breast cancer. Meanwhile, those with an increased risk of lung cancer are believed to be attributed to unhealthy lifestyle like smoking, lack of exercise, and poor diet.

Such poor habits can often set hurdles to challenging financial situations requiring social security disability benefits. Although there are lots of Los Angeles social security claim lawyers who are ready for the challenge of filing for a disability claim, the same could be complicated and time consuming. Therefore, it would still be best if people would try to avoid such improper practices and unhealthy lifestyle to avoid possible future disabling conditions.

How Social Security Disability Benefits and Workers’ Compensation Correlates

Many workers who have suffered from job-related injuries actually have a lot of options that will provide them financial assistance to make ends meet. Two of the most common benefits that a wage earner can receive are the social security disability benefit and worker’s compensation.

However, although the said benefits can be both received by an injured wage earner, these two greatly affects each other.

Until now, many people are still unaware of the difference and correlation between the two; hence the need to educate the public.

Here’s a simple distinction between the two:

Social Security is a helpful program provided by the government to wage earners with long term disabilities that hinder them from pursuing their job, whether the injuries they sustained are job-related or not. Meanwhile workers’ compensation helps wage earners who were injured in their workplace or were affected by a workplace-related illness. Its benefits include medical care and cash assistance for the lost wages and damages.

Now, if a recipient received both of the above said benefits, the total amount of earnings from those two cannot exceed 80% of the average earnings before the recipient eventually became disabled. Any amount exceeding 80% of the wage earners former average earnings is deducted from the social security disability benefits until a beneficiary reaches the age of 65 or until workers’ compensation stops.

However, recipients must take note that disability payments that came from private insurance companies do not affect Social Security Disability benefits, only those that came from government sources do.

Filing for both social security disability benefits and workers’ compensation would definitely be a very long way process. In fact, there is no room for mistakes during the process, as such may result in being denied. It is still best to have your social security disability lawyer to guide and represent you with your claims.