Cancer—and treatment for cancer—can clearly require you to stop working. Your health is weakened. Your energy goes into addressing the disease. You need rest and recovery.
But if you stop working, you run into financial problems.
Social Security Disability benefits can help stabilize your situation by providing monthly income support and eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid health care. Having health problems that leave you unable to work is the primary qualification for benefits.
If your form of cancer is aggressive, you also may be able to speed up your application for disability benefits.
Normally it can take months or longer to get approved for Social Security Disability. People are frequently denied and must appeal. But Social Security has a program called “Compassionate Allowances” that lets you get a faster decision when your disease obviously forces you off work.
Compassionate Allowances apply to many cases of cancer.
You can get help putting together all the paperwork and getting approved. Social Security Disability lawyers deal with this system and do this work every day.
People in Oregon talk to the disability attorneys at Wells, Manning, Eitenmiller & Taylor, who have a combined 60 years of experience with the Social Security Disability process.
From our offices in Eugene-Springfield, Albany, Roseburg, Coos Bay and Medford, we serve people all over Oregon. You pay no attorney fee until you win disability benefits.
Keep reading for more about getting Social Security Disability for cancer. Or for help with your claim, talk to us directly.
Cancer comes in more types than most people can name. Social Security lists several specific forms of cancer that are covered by disability benefits:
If you have a more rare type of cancer, or any cancer not on the list, you can still get benefits.
With any medical condition, whether it is named by Social Security as qualifying for benefits or not, you can work with your medical providers to give Social Security a measure of what they call your “residual functional capacity,” or RFC.
Your RFC is a report on what level of physical and mental exertion you can perform despite your diagnosis. An experienced disability lawyer knows how to get this information in the proper shape for you.
Start with a free conversation with our disability law firm to see how your disability claim for cancer might look.
Cancer comes in so many levels of severity that not every case of cancer will necessarily be approved for Social Security Disability benefits.
If someone can still mostly work while they undergo cancer treatment, they won’t be approved for benefits.
For you to win benefits, you must provide hard medical evidence of the severity of your illness and how it makes working impossible.
For a disability application for cancer, Social Security will take forms of evidence like these:
This medical evidence, combined with information about your age, education, work history and demands of the types of work you’ve done, can give Social Security a clear picture of why you can’t work now—and why you should get financial assistance.
Social Security Disability benefits can help you get a greater sense of peace while you’re going through cancer and all the stress and upheaval in your life that comes with it.
It is the mission of the disability attorneys at Wells, Manning, Eitenmiller & Taylor to support our Oregon neighbors in times of need. We can take on much of the work of gathering your medical evidence for disability benefits, so you can rest easier.
We provide personal, caring attention to your case. Let’s talk.
Whether you’re trying to determine if you’re qualified for disability benefits, you need help filing your application, or you received a denial notice and want another chance, our law firm helps from the beginning and stays by your side.
Your health is bad. You can’t work. Your financial stability is threatened. So your head is swimming with questions. How will you get by? How does Social Security Disability work? We’ve gathered answers. See them here:
Disability FAQs »“(My lawyer) did a great job getting my case ready, and the court settled in my favor. I highly recommend Wells, Manning, Eitenmiller & Taylor.”