Recalculating
 

Has anyone had the experience of having their retro-pay held up 5 months after receiving a favorable (SSDI) judgement, after receiving your monthly check and medicare months ago? My wife's lawyer, our congressman's staff and I have contacted SS about the length of time its been since her award and why its now taking 5 months for her 3.5 year retro-pay. Sometime ago SS said it needed a second signature. Now they are stating they need a third signature and that a miscalculation may have occurred, so they are now in the process, after several years, in recalculating my wife's benefit amount.

Has anyone ever or know what is really going on? Or if there is a recourse, because we all know they most likely will recalculate to SS'es benefit not the taxpayer. And if this happens is it something that should be seriously looked into and who should do the looking? Thanks all!

"Recalculating"....I thought my GPS was talking to me again.:D

(sorry Jimking..I couldn't resist!)

No problem, that's why I chose that title to catch attention. "Recalculating" gets on my nerves too with the GPS thing especially when you make that critical turn. :)

The odds are about equal that the recalculation will result in an increased benefit as it would result in a decreased benefit. We don't all know it will reduce your wife's benefit. SSA increases benefits regularly when new earnings are added to retirement benefits or when worker's comp is no longer being used to offset SSDI benefits. Is it the SSDI or SSI that needs to be recalculated? SSI can change from month to month. Perhaps the windfall offset was done incorrectly.

It is SSDI. You brought up something that dawned on me yesterday. Over a month ago my congressman's staff member called SS about the retro pay and was told they were checking to see if there were any liens on the my wife's check such as SSI, medicaid WC etc. She did not qualify for SSI, foodstamps, medicaid. Her case was not a WC case. So, there are no liens on her retro-pay. That is what I was told over a month ago, however what was told to me yesterday by SS it was a recalculation issue. Could it be that both explanations are the same?

Hard to guess. Sorry.

Case over. My wife finally received all her benefits today. 4 year battle won. :)

Congratulations. I've been following your saga and am happy for you and your wife.

Nancy

Thanks Nancy. It turns out the hold up was confusion with my wife's short-term disability pay and actual hours worked on the job. SS thought perhaps Suzy was not forthright in providing the correct stop work date and was working instead. We had the same issue with the SS judge but we provided employer benefit info to her before she put Suzy's case off for another year. This most likely happens to many people.

Before
:Bang-Head:

After
:Dancing-Chilli:

Congratulations!