Hiring a Social Security Disability Attorney for Your Spine Injury

It’s estimated that 17,500 Americans suffer nonfatal spinal cord injuries every year. And in 2017, between 245,000 and 353,000 Americans were living with spinal cord injuries. Injuries to the spinal cord are painful, debilitating, and sometimes disabling. If you are one of the thousands of Americans who suffered a spinal cord injury—or another spine injury—this year, you may qualify for Social Security disability benefits. But do you know how the disability benefits application process works? And do you know the benefits of hiring a social security disability attorney for your spine injury? If not, our Carabin Shaw experts serving San Antonio are here to help.

Read on to learn about who can receive disability benefits after a spine injury, the basics of disability law in Texas, and the benefits of enlisting the help of qualified San Antonio disability attorneys.

Not everyone who suffers a spinal injury will qualify to receive Social Security disability benefits. In order to receive Social Security disability benefits after any type of spinal injury, you must first meet all of the following criteria:

• You are unable to work because of your spinal injury
• You cannot do the work you previously did before your spinal injury
• You cannot learn to do a new type of work because of your spinal injury
• Your spinal injury will last for 12 months or more, or is expected to result in death

But how do you determine whether or not your injury prevents you from working? The Social Security Administration determines the severity of spinal cord injuries using a guide called the Blue Book. According to the guidelines in this book, if you meet one of the below criteria because of your spinal injury, you should be able to receive benefits:

• You are entirely unable to move either your arms or legs
• You have difficulty moving two of your limbs, to the point that you struggle to:
• Balance while standing
• Walk without a wheelchair, walker, or crutches
• You have marked difficulty with mental functioning, such as:
• Difficulty remembering or comprehending information
• Concentrating
• Interacting with other people
• Regulating emotions

Technically, you do not need to enlist San Antonio disability attorneys or advocates in order to apply for disability benefits. However, the disability application process is arduous and complex, and many applicants are denied after months—or years—of waiting.

A qualified disability lawyer can greatly increase your chances of being approved, and can provide you with valuable guidance about how to gather necessary medical documentation, how to prove your disability, and how to submit an appeal if your initial application was denied. And good San Antonio injury attorneys don’t collect a fee unless your application is successful, because they work on a contingency basis. Basically, hiring a lawyer is a way to streamline the application process, and to increase the odds that your application will be successful.

Here at Carabin Shaw, our San Antonio injury attorneys have more than 200 years of combined legal experience, and our law firm has been helping injured Texans for more than two decades. We’re experts in disability law, and we want to help you however we can so that you can get the benefits you need and deserve.

So reach out to Carabin Shaw’s San Antonio office today at 210-222-2288 to receive your free consultation with an expert attorney specializing in disability law in Texas, and to find out how our San Antonio disability attorneys can help. Don’t wait—reach out so we can help you get your life back on track following your spinal injury.