I'll be adding two new websites in the very near future. I already have one nearly finished and the other one will be worked on soon afterward. I am hoping to have both websites up and running by the beginning of 2010.

In so doing, I have also decided to restructure my Blog page and have it moved to my main website when my other two websites are opened.

In my new websites, I will have separate pages for the various products and services which I offer, along with offering associates of mine the opportunity for them to have a website of their own created or updated, and then linked between my sites and theirs.

My new websites will be also featuring a payment section whereby clients and customers will be able to order products and pay for services by paypal, credit card, or debit card in a secured and safe manner. What this means to my customers and clients is that:

1. local area customers can contact me, place an order for their products (be it bait, tackle, boating, rope, groceries, cigarettes, etc.) and then pay for the products online, and then I'll have their products available for them to simply drop by and pick up on their way home from work.

2. Customers who live a bit farther way and can't come to my store directly will be able to place an order, pay for it plus shipping, and I'll have it shipped right to their door.

3. Clients and prospective clients who use or wish to use my professional services offered can do so even though they don't live right in my area.

4. Associates of mine will be able to expand their geographic service area, as well.

Making things better for you.... this makes

Plain.
Simple.
Common Sense.

The old saying "Saving for a Rainy Day" can hold very true in cases of disability.

Many employers offer what is known as "Cafeteria Plans" of Insurance and Retirement Benefits to their employees by allowing an employee to pick and choose from a variety of insurance and retirement plans available at the workplace, and then the employer deducts the premiums on a per paycheck basis before taxes.

This can have more benefits than just the income tax benefits of paying for your plans with pre-tax dollars rather than post-tax dollars.

If you have Short and Long Term Disability Insurance available through your workplace, you should take a serious look into them. There are some insurers these days that even offer a return of premium if you retire without having a claim for disability coverage.

Of the persons I have represented so far in disability cases, there have been a few who took advantage of workplace disability insurance policies and they were much better off during their wait to be approved than those who didn't have any disability insurance.

Usually, disability insurance plans will pay a stipulated percentage of your payroll salary if you become disabled. The standard is 60% but there are plans that will pay higher percentages as well as there being plans that pay lower percentages of your normal workplace income. Additionally, insurers offer a variety of time elements for starting to receive benefits, from 1 week to around a month, generally, from the date of your onset of your disability.

Short term disability insurance plans usually offer other options such as a maximum time for disability benefits, such as 1 year, 2 years, or 3 years, with 3 years being pretty much standard in the industry. Since a Social Security Disability claim could very well take up to 3 years to get approved, I suggest that you look into at least Short Term plans that will pay benefits from about 1 week into your disability through 3 years, so that it will be of great help during the Social Security Disability application process.

Remember that, even if you filed a claim for disability with Social security and you were accepted in the initial application level, Social Security will not pay benefits for the first 5 months of your disability. Having a short-term plan that will start off with, like day 7 of your disability, will help you keep your head above the financial waters during those first 5 months, and until you get approved.

Long Term Disability plans usually cover the insured throughout the entire lifetime of the disability, but the plan can also stipulate the number of years of benefits (i.e. 10 years or any other specified number of years or months). Contrary to popular belief, the amount of Social Security benefits you receive is not affected by the amount you receive through your disability insurance benefits. Private insurance benefits would only affect the SSI benefits, if any, that you may receive.

Another card up your sleeve which you might wish to consider in case of disability is an IRA. If you have a qualifying disabling condition or illness, you can withdraw some or all of your IRA funds without having to pay a penalty for early withdrawal. If you have a traditional IRA, you will still have to report it and pay taxes on the amount you have taken out, but there wouldn't be any penalties attached. If you have a Roth plan, you already paid the taxes on that, so you would not have to pay taxes nor penalties on the amount you have withdrawn. You may wish to talk with your tax professional about this.

If you have questions or need help with a Social security issue and don't know who to turn to, feel free to contact me by clicking on the "Contact" link on my website:

www.ssabenefit.com

or you can call me at the number listed on my website.

Capt. Leonardo Ortiz (USMM)

Your Social Security Benefits are determined by the income you have earned and received, primarily over the past 5 years.

Generally, you should receive a Social Security Statement once a year, or you can get your Social Security Statement by visiting the Social Security government website online by simply clicking on the Social Security website link on my website:

www.ssabenefit.com

You will notice the Social Security link on the right-hand side of my main page.

You can also get a Social Security statement by calling your local Social Security office or stopping in and requesting one.

This is an important annual piece of information for you to have, since your Social Security statement will show you your annual earnings since you started working, what your retirement benefits would be if you continued earning the same amount until you retired, what your disability benefits would be if you became disabled, and what kind of benefits would be available to your spouse and children, if any, dependent upon variables.

If you or someone you know is disabled and don't know what to do, who to talk to, if you need representation and if so, who to represent you, contact me.

You can contact me by clicking the Contact link on my main page, answer the questions, and send it to me (be sure your phone number is included, so I can call you), or you can call me.

I deal only with Social Security and Labor cases, with my concentration being in Social Security Disability cases. It is my specialty since 2001.

Capt. Leonardo Ortiz

When you file a claim for Social Security or Supplemental Security Income disability benefits, you become the party who has the burden of proof. You have to prove that you are disabled under Social Security rules in order to be eligible to receive disability benefits.

This is usually where the claimant ends up having the biggest problem in applying for disability benefits.

SSA (Social Security Administration) handles claims processing for both SSDI (Social Security Disability Income) and SSI (Supplemental Security Income), though the latter is a welfare program paid by the state and not by Social Security funds. When you apply for disability benefits through Social Security, they gather the evidence you have regarding your disabling illness or condition and then pass the information from the application process over to the Disability Determination Services (DDS) in order to determine whether or not, by the evidence available to them, you are disabled under SSA rules.

In the State of SC, DDS is administered through a section of the SC Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. Their job is to look through the information you provided, check your medical records, and determine if, by that information, you are disabled or not, pursuant to SSA rules. Sometimes, though not necessarily a requirement they do so, if they are not quite clear on whether or not your medical records indicate disability, they may schedule an appointment for you to go to an Independent Medical Examiner which may be able to help them clarify things some in order for DDS to make a determination.

If you have ample medical evidence proving your claim during the initial application level and showing that you qualify under SSA rules, then DDS will make a favorable determination regarding your claim. If not, then they will send you a denial letter. If you get the denial letter, you have 60 days from the date of the letter to submit the necessary forms to request an appeal, which is called a request for reconsideration.

During the Reconsideration stage, a completely different group of folks from DDS is supposed to review all the evidence and make their own determination, independet of the prior determination. If they make a favorable determination, then you will begin receiving disability benefits. If not, and you wish to continue with your claim, then you have 60 days to request a hearing.

Generally, it has been taking an average of 3 to 6 months for a determination to be made during the initial application process. If denied and you file for reconsideration, depending on when you request it, it can then take an additional 6 months or so for that determination to be made. If you are denied again and request a hearing, it then may take a bit longer for you to get your hearing date, since you basically take your turn and wait for your turn to come up.

If you have questions about the disability process and don't know who to turn to, and do not have someone representing you already, feel free to contact me through my contact page in my website here, or by calling me on the number listed in this website.

SOCIAL SECURITY

News Release

Social Security Hearings Backlog Down for First Time in Decade
Productivity and Processing Times Also Improve

Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security, today announced that for the first time since 1999, the agency has ended the year with fewer disability hearings pending than in the prior year. Social Security ended fiscal year (FY) 2009 with 722,822 hearings pending compared to 760,813 hearings pending at the start of the year, a reduction of more than 37,000 cases. Over the same period, the average processing time for these cases improved from 514 days in FY 2008 to 491 in FY 2009.

“Our backlog reduction plan is working, and progress is accelerating,” Commissioner Astrue said. “Even in the face of a significant increase in our workloads as a result of the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have reduced the hearings backlog for nine consecutive months. Thanks to the efforts of thousands of hardworking Social Security employees and the additional funding we received from President Obama and the Congress, we have exceeded our backlog reduction goal for this year.”

To achieve its backlog reduction goals, the agency has embarked on the largest expansion in decades of its capacity to hear disability appeals. This year, the agency hired 147 new Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) and 850 support staff and plans to hire 226 additional ALJs plus support staff in FY 2010. To provide flexibility to assist the most backlogged hearing offices, the agency opened three new National Hearing Centers (NHCs) in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Baltimore, Maryland; and Chicago, Illinois. The agency also has aggressive plans to open 14 new hearing offices and 4 satellite offices by the end of next year with the first of those new offices opening in Anchorage, Alaska in the next few months.

In addition to reducing the number of cases awaiting a hearing decision, the agency again targeted the oldest and most difficult cases for processing. Beginning in FY 2007 with 65,000 cases that were 1,000 days old or older, the agency has continually attacked its “aged” cases. This year, the agency targeted 166,838 cases that were 850 days or older and virtually eliminated this entire universe of cases. The goal in FY 2010 has been reset again to eliminate cases over 825 days old.

Social Security’s ALJs also continue to increase their productivity. The agency averaged 570 dispositions (2.28 per day) per available ALJ in FY 2009, an upward trend that has continued for the last three years.

For more information about Social Security’s hearings process and backlog reduction initiatives, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/appeals.

Thursday, October 15, 2009 Mark Lassiter, Press Officer
For Immediate Release 410-965-8904

SOCIAL SECURITY
News Release

Prompt Passage of Economic Recovery Act Payment for 2010 Needed
Law Does Not Provide for a Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment for 2010
(Printer friendly version)

With consumer prices down over the past year, monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 57 million Americans will not automatically increase in 2010. This will be the first year without an automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) since they went into effect in 1975.

“Social Security is doing its job helping Americans maintain their standard of living,” Michael J. Astrue, Commissioner of Social Security said. “Last year when consumer prices spiked, largely as a result of higher gas prices, beneficiaries received a 5.8 percent COLA, the largest increase since 1982. This year, in light of the human need, we need to support President Obama’s call for us to make another $250 recovery payment for 57 million Americans.”

The Social Security Act provides that Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits increase automatically each year if there is an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the last year to the third quarter of the current year. This year there was no increase in the CPI-W from the third quarter of 2008 to the third quarter of 2009. In addition, because there was no increase in the CPI-W this year, under the law the starting point for determinations regarding a possible 2011 COLA will remain the third quarter of 2008.

Some other changes that would normally take effect in January 2010 based on the increase in average wages also will not take effect, even though average wages did increase. Since there is no COLA, the statute prohibits an increase in the maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax as well as the retirement earnings test exempt amounts. These amounts will remain unchanged in 2010. The attached fact sheet provides more information on 2010 Social Security changes.

Information about Medicare changes for 2010, when available, will be found at www.Medicare.gov. The Department of Health and Human Services has not yet announced if there will be any Medicare premium changes for 2010. Should there be an increase in the Medicare Part B premium, the law contains a “hold harmless” provision that protects about 93 percent of Social Security beneficiaries from paying a higher Part B premium, in order to avoid reducing their net Social Security benefit. Those not protected include higher income beneficiaries subject to an income-adjusted Part B premium and beneficiaries newly entitled to Part B in 2010. On September 24th, the House passed legislation by 406-18 that would, on a fully paid-for basis, prevent abnormally large premium increases. The President is calling on the Senate to enact this legislation before it becomes too late for the Social Security Administration to update its computer systems to implement this needed change.

For additional information about the 2010 COLA, go to www.socialsecurity.gov/cola.

CAPTAIN’S LOG
By: Capt. Leonardo Ortiz, USMM
09-17-2009



Amy and I went to the Bruce Springsteen concert in Greenville on Wed, the 16th of Sept. and it was one of the best concerts I have ever been to.

A historic concert, since "The Boss" has never performed in Greenville before, the concert was late in starting due to the large numbers of fans showing up to the Bi-Lo Center.
The concert was supposed to start at 7:30. It started at 8:15, and when it did, it did so explosively! Total energy filled the entire auditorium, spurned on by Springsteen performing non-stop, one song after another, without so much as a pause for a sip of water, breath of air, or anything during the first 40 minutes.

His black shirt by that time was soaked and sweat dripping down and off his face evidenced the amount of energy he exuded while in the first 40 minutes of his performance.

He stopped between songs right after the initial 40 minute marathon to drink some ice water. And then, like the Energizer Bunny, he kept going and going and going... until 11 pm, stopping briefly between a series of songs for rehydration. A couple of times, he had some huge sponges soaked in water that he doused all over himself to rehydrate himself.
His energy transcended into the crowd, which few people in the crowd ever sat down. Rather, the audience danced, jumped, swayed and sang right along with him.

Some of the folks on the floor area held up signs and posters with cute little phrases on them. He had someone go out to the audience to pick up some that caught his attention and he'd then display them on the stage. One of the signs said "Bringing Satisfaction to SC" and had the Stones' Sticky Fingers album's lips glued on the poster. Springsteen held up the sign, and the E-Street Band played the Stones' song, with seemingly everyone in the audience singing along... "I Can't Get No... Satisfaction."

Actually, Springsteen did a great job doing that song!

A couple of times, Springsteen went off the stage while singing, and walked among the crowd while he sang. At one point, he helped a woman next to the stage climb up to the stage (he literally had to pull her up on the stage), and danced with her, then he picked her up and lat her down again on the floor fronting the stage.

The concert was well worth the money. Even the two beers I bought there at the cost of a case of beer most enywhere else was worth it.

While walking back to our car after the concert, Amy asked me if I enjoyed the concert. I said it was a good concert. Right then, I decided that I would write about the concert in my column. So here it is.

I've had some people contact me to see if they would qualify for Social Security Disability Benefits just because they could not find a job. Although the number of jobs available in the national economy can be a factor in determining whether or not you qualify for Disability Benefits, just that element alone will not automatically qualify you.

In determination of whether or not you may qualify for Disability Benefits under SSA rules, there is a list of 5 elements which are looked at:

1. Gainful Employment. If you are not employed, you can then look at the next element. If you are working a job which can be viewed as Gainful Employment, then you do not qualify.

2. Illness or Impairment. If you have an illness or impairment which has been diagnosed as one that will lead to death, OR if that illness or impairment is diagnosed as one that will last more than 12 months, AND the illness or impairment keeps you from working a regular job or any past types of jobs, based on your education, skills, etc., then you may possibly be disabled under SSA rules, so look into the next element. If not, then you do not qualify.

3. Meet Listing of Impairments. If your condition meets the criteria for disability under SSA's listing of impairments, and you qualify as well under the two above elements, then you are most likely disabled under SSA rules. If not, then you don't qualify.

4. Past Work History. If you qualify in the above 3, and, due to your condition(s), you cannot perform any of the jobs you have held before due to your condition(s), then you might qualify. If not, then you don't.

5. Jobs in the National Economy. If you qualify under elements 1-4, then the next step in the determination process is whether or not there exists a significant number of other jobs in the national economy that a person with your condition(s) could be reasonably expected to perform. If there are not ample jobs in the national economy that someone with your type(s) of condition(s) can perform, and you also meet all 4 above elements, then you are disabled under SSA rules. If not, then you aren't.

If you have applied for Disability Benefits, and been turned down, you will notice that in the denial letter there is a page that sets forth the reasoning for their denial of your Disability claim. You need to be sure to keep your denial letter(s), making sure that you keep that determination page with it.

If you applied for Disability Benefits, were turned down and then applied for Reconsideration and again were turned down, you have 60 days to ask for an appeal. If you were turned down twice already, you should contact me immediately after the second time and schedule an appointment to see me. If you live too far away to come see me, we can take care of most everything over the telephone and through the mail, but generally, I like to have the first initial consultation in person.

If, after having the initial consultation, I feel that you have a good case, then I'll tell you so and I'll be happy to take your case. If I don't feel you have a good case, I'll tell you that, too, and I won't take your case.

Since I take cases only on a contingency basis (meaning that I don't get paid if I don't win your case), I won't take a case that I think doesn't qualify.

Call me and schedule an appointment right away. If you wait til the last minute close to the end of the 60 days after you were last turned down, I won't take your case, since I like to have the time to do things right rather than try to hurry in a panic at the last minute.

Capt. Leonardo Ortiz