FAQ

At age 18, young adults who were eligible for SSI as children are evaluated to determine if they qualify for benefits under the adult definition of disability. This redetermination process is essential to many youth who continue to need the support of SSI.

For children, disability is determined by “marked or severe functional limitations,” whereas for adults, disability is measured against the ability to perform substantial gainful activity (SGA), an income level set annually by SSA. Due to this, an age 18 redetermination is considered a new medical decision for eligibility based on adult standards. Using SOAR, we can help youth with this redetermination process by writing a comprehensive Medical Summary Report regarding the applicant’s functioning with respect to performing substantial gainful activity and completing an SSA-1696, Appointment of Representative form.

More information can be found in the article, Age 18 Redetermination.

The Medical Summary Report (MSR) Interview Guide and Template is a great tool for writing the MSR. The Interview Guide portion contains key questions to ask applicants when gathering evidence for the application. The Template contains main headings that may be used when formatting the MSR. Be sure to remove the Interview Guide and guidance under the Template headings before turning the MSR in to DDS. It is also important to put the MSR on your agency's letterhead whenever possible.

This guide and template can be found on the SOAR Tools and Worksheets page.

We estimate that the full SOAR Online Course takes approximately 16-20 hours to complete, including time spent working on the practice case study. The length of each class varies, as some classes contain more articles than others. Also, we designed the course so that trainees can work through it at their own pace. As a result, the time spent in each class varies from person to person.

If you are finding that the classes are taking a significant amount of time and you have questions about the material, I encourage you to reach out to your SOAR TA Center Liaison.

All complete packets submitted to SOAR TA Center will be reviewed within 10 business days. If your application packet is complete and without major errors or omissions, you will receive a Certificate of Completion. If there are significant errors/omissions, you will be invited to revise your packet and resubmit it for a second review. Once we receive your updated documents, you will hear from us within 7 business days. If the errors/omissions have been corrected, you will receive a Certificate of Completion.

All of our resources are open-access and free to use when helping applicants. However, we request that you only use the “SOAR” label at Social Security when you are working with individuals who are experiencing or at-risk for homelessness. Read more about how we define homelessness and at-risk. If the applicants you assist do not fit this criteria, you are still welcome to use any of our materials that you find helpful, without marking the application as “SOAR” at Social Security.

It's never been too long! You are welcome to submit your documents for the SOAR Online Course practice case at any time and the system will never time you out.

If you have specific questions about your practice case, email them to soaronline@prainc.com.

This is a great question! While DDS does not have a way to process records received via disk, this sounds like a good opportunity to speak with them about signing up for Electronic Records Express, which allows you to upload medical records directly into an applicant’s file from your computer without having to print them. I recommend reaching out to your DDS Professional Relations Officer, or your local SOAR contact, for details on how to register.  This should be a quick process, allowing you to upload these records without delaying your current case.

We recommend against using the SSA-8001 form for a SOAR application because it contains less comprehensive information about an applicant’s income and resources. As such, the applicant would still need to complete an in-person or phone interview with SSA in order to complete the SSA-8000. By completing the SSA-8000 and turning it in to SSA, you can often avoid the need for this interview.

If you find that your local SSA office is not accepting the SSA-8000 from in lieu of an interview, I encourage you to reach out to your SOAR TA Center Liaison and SOAR State Lead so that they can provide local assistance.

This is definitely something we hear quite a bit and a very pervasive rumor that an applicant has to be denied X number or times, or can only win on appeal. The truth is that if the evidence is in the initial filing showing that an applicant meets the criteria for SSI or SSDI, he/she will be approved at the initial stage. Using the SOAR model results in higher approval rates (see our national outcomes) because we focus on getting all of the information in the file from the beginning, whereas many people who are eligible for benefits are denied because they don’t have assistance in gathering this documentation.

Some lawyers who take fees for assisting with disability claims specialize in appeals and don’t provide the evidence in the initial stage – they wait for the application to be denied and then work on the appeal. For an application at the appeal stage to be successful, the vast majority of the time it requires new evidence that wasn’t originally presented (there are some cases that are overturned due to oversights at DDS). So, it’s not that DDS wants to deny the case from the beginning, they just didn’t have the right information. It doesn’t save them any money to automatically deny people and then send them to appeal (in fact, it actually costs them more money in adjudicator time, medical records requests, and consultative exams).

All of that said, we understand why people think this is true. The overall national approval rate for SSI/SSDI (without SOAR) is only 29%. So yes, that means 71% of people are denied. It's not possible to know how many applicants needed more evidence and how many just didn't meet the disability criteria, but it certainly leads to many myths about the process.

Great questions! For the MSR, there currently isn’t a way to submit that online unless you are registered with DDS to use Electronic Records Express. Through that system, you can submit medical records and additional documentation by uploading it to the ERE system. I recommend reaching out to your DDS Professional Relations Officer, or your local SOAR contact, for details on how to register. Alternatively, DDS can generate a bar-coded cover sheet which you can use to fax the MSR and records to DDS. By using this process, the documentation will be added directly to the applicant’s file.

Applications can still use the SOAR process if applicants need to go to the SSA office for an interview. Many SSA offices waive the need for this interview if the SOAR representative fills out the disability application online and the SSI application (SSA-8000) on paper and delivers it to the SSA office. However, some SSA offices still require the applicant to attend an interview to verify the information in the SSI application. I recommend completing the online portion of the disability application at least 1-2 days before this interview, so that SSA has critical information about the case on file before the interview. You’ll then be able to provide supporting documentation on the application after the case reaches DDS.

For the application forms, use this link for working on real applications. Some of the training forms have certain parts that are fillable/not-fillable, but the link above will guide you to where the forms can be found on SSA’s website. Remember that the SSA-16 and SSA-3368 can be used as worksheets, as those will be filled out and turned in online.