Is Social Security Disability Different Than Veterans Disability?
- SSDI is an insurance program that pays benefits to those who have worked and contributed payroll taxes via FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) deductions, which funds the entire Social Security budget. SSDI pays for total disabilities that prevent you from working, and guarantees payment if you are permanently disabled. VA benefits are obligations of the federal government to military veterans. VA funding is not mandatory; it's a yearly line-item budget item that Congress must fund annually. Budget shortfalls as VA beneficiaries increase have prompted calls for mandatory funding.
- Veterans who apply for VA benefits must prove that their disability is service related. It can be a partial or total disability, but it must stem from time served in the military. The definition of a disability for SSDI benefits is much different. To qualify for SSDI, you must have worked in the past and contributed to the Social Security fund. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has a formula for accumulating work credits throughout your life to qualify for benefits. The SSA considers applicants disabled if they can't perform work they previously did, if it's determined that they can't adjust to other employment because of the disability or medical condition --- and if the disability has lasted for at least one year or the disability is expected to last at least a year or result in death.
- SSDI benefits are based on total disability. Payments are not made for partial disabilities. Veterans can qualify for VA disability benefits with partial disabilities. VA "compensable" ratings range from 0 to 100 percent and, even though a person with a 0 percent rating is not eligible for benefits, many veterans begin their application process knowing they'll likely receive such a rating. They do so because they suspect a current condition probably will develop into a compensable condition at a later date, and they then have the service-connected criteria satisfied, and the paperwork is in the queue.
- A major difference between VA benefits and SSDI is the role of the attending, or treating, physician. SSDI guidelines explicitly give a treating doctor's opinion "deference." This means that the physician's medical opinion is given any benefit of the doubt in determining an applicant's disability. VA applicants enjoy no such benefit of the doubt with their doctors' opinions, and getting a doctor to give such an opinion is more difficult because many physicians attending to veterans are employed by the VA. Critics of the apparent conflict point to the fact that VA medical doctrine is based on the principle that a veteran's case take into account an applicant's entire military history and not simply his medical records.
- It's legal to receive VA benefits and SSDI at the same time. If you're disabled under VA guidelines, this can help you substantially when applying for SSDI for the same disability. This is because several circuit court rulings have determined that VA disability ratings are entitled to a "great weight" or "substantial weight" status. Once a veteran has that diagnosis from a VA physician, it's nearly impossible for the SSDI to deny a claim. However, the reverse is not true. An SSDI finding of a disability carries very little weight on the VA side of things, mostly because SSDI findings are not based on service-related disability criteria. You can collect SSDI and VA benefits simultaneously, and you can collect VA and Social Security retirement benefits at the same time. But you cannot collect SSDI and Social Security retirement benefits at the same time. You receive one or the other.
