I am new to the group. My stepson is 28 with paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The meds do not seem to be working. He can not even perform daily living activities , much less work. We are shouldering the financial burden for meds, therapy, ect because he has no insurance. he either lives with us or he would be homeless. I have no idea about Disability benefits or how to go about getting him insurance because he has no way to pay for anything. Any advice on benefits would be helpful. This has put a strain on our mental wellbeing and our finances. We love him and take care of him but he needs more than we can give him.
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Welcome to the forum. You should start by entering “disability and social security” into the search box on the upper right. There is a good deal of information available on the site, unfortunately, dealing with brain disorders requires a good deal of reading and research on the part of the family.
Does your stepson’s psychiatrist agree that he is disabled? I ask because Social Security will require the psychiatrist to say he is unable to work due to his disorder. Has the psychiatrist encouraged you to apply for disability? Does your stepson have a history of getting jobs and failing to keep them?
Many of the forum members strongly encourage that you have a disability attorney work with you on the application. The attorney will often take their fee out of the back disability awarded.
Medications can only do so much for our family members. Some of the meds take a long time to show benefits. Sometimes meds only make symptoms less difficult for our family members.
Your stepson is fortunate to have you working on his behalf. Having ssi and/or ssdi on board along with medicaid and food assistance can help. Our family members are expensive even with those benefits in place. Medicaid and/or Medicare (2 years after disabled) are crucial.
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Disability and social security
Your stepson may be eligible for SSI and SSDI.
Fact Sheet: Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)
Fact Sheet: Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
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Hope, you are 100% correct, but I’d like to add a few notes. An adult who has a disability that began before age 22 may be eligible for benefits if their parent is deceased or starts receiving retirement or disability benefits. We consider this a “child’s” benefit because it is paid on a parent’s Social Security earnings record.
My son qualified for this, even though his father still worked.
Also, if he was diagnosed with the disability 2 years before he applied for medicare, then he will qualify for medicare and medicaid. My son does. My son still lives at home and yes, my son’s is expensive even with his benefits.
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Excellent points Robin, thanks!
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He may also qualify for SNAP.
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Thank you so much for the information. I did not understand the difference between the two until receiving this information.
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Social Security has an excellent website full of information and an online application process. Helping our family members requires hours of reading. Have you found out if his doctor agrees that he is disabled? Does he have a history of failed jobs? Sometimes people apply over and over and don’t realize that the doctor’s diagnosis is the issue.
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Yes the doctor has agreed that he is not able to work. He was diagnosed at the age 17. He has had a few failed jobs when he was lucid enough to do landscaping, but would stop taking meds and loose the job. He would roam the streets when living with his mom ( basically homeless) and was in jail for loitering and trying to get in a car to sleep for two years. We decided to take over and he is taking meds and not roaming, but the meds do not seem to be working. We are up all hours of the night with him. My husband is missing lots of work trying to figure all this out. I am praying that everything will eventually calm down!
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As you are probably reading on the older threads, many people will counsel heavily that you use the services of a disability lawyer. If you do apply yourself, we were taught in Family to Family that the evaluation that is done by the applicant must not stress their capabilities on their better days (as is often the way of parents) but should be addressed in terms of his worst days - stressing their incapabilities.
Many of our families have gone to unusual measures to preserve their own sleep time. My son was always up at night, we had to run a large noisy fan in our room to be able to sleep. Other families have needed heavy locked doors.
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My son on SSD since he was 26. Went through 2nd time around. He had worked in past, and needed to show I think, 10 quarters. I filled out application myself.
Good Luck!
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My son is on Both Medicaid and Medicare. he has been on them since 2018. When he was admitted in one hospital in California and stayed there for 3 months,. The Hospital care menagement started the process and then when he traveled back to my state, we followed up with a Disability lawyer but , my son kept on rejecting to sign the paper and refusing to get money from disability claiming that he wants to work.
he was not able to work and costing me quite of bit to travel then he becomes homeless for a while. I had to start a guardianship application in my state and they served him in California. he did not show to the Court for the Guardianship then I was awarded to be his legal guardian in 2018.
I followed up with the disabilty/SSI lawyer and they paid all the months since he was diagnosed in 2017.
My son is now with me and taking meds and a monthly shot but he is not flexiable to try another Med like clozapine because of the weekly blood draws. He may get better on Clozapine but following Clozapine REMS is hard.
On the meds cocktail he is taking currenlty, hee is still not able to do much other than spending 3 to 4 hours at Starbucks daily and burning $50 to $60 a days on coffe and cigarettes and some snack.
it is always a struggle to get to take his monthly shot and to see his Physiatric…
I am happy to hear that you are caring for your stepson. you may want to try Clozapine if he accepts the weekly blood draws for 6 months. I heard it is best medicine out there for Schizphrenia
Best of luck
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