Return to Work

Work Incentive Planning and Assistance (WIPA) projects are community-based organizations that provide all Social Security and SSI disability beneficiaries with free access to work incentives planning and assistance. Each WIPA project has counselors called Community Work Incentives Coordinators (CWIC) who:

• Provide work incentives planning and assistance to beneficiaries with disabilities;
• Conduct outreach efforts to those beneficiaries (and their families) who are potentially eligible to participate in Federal or state employment support programs; and
• Work in cooperation with Federal, state, private agencies and nonprofit organizations that serve beneficiaries with disabilities.

If you are one of the many SSDI or SSI disability beneficiaries who want to return to work, a WIPA project can help you understand the employment supports that are available to you and enable you to make informed choices about work.

If you are receiving SSDI or SSI benefits, you or your representative payee must promptly report any changes in work activity that could affect your benefits. You must tell SSA right away if:

• You return to work;
• You already reported to work, but your duties or pay have changed;
• You start paying for work expenses due to your disability.

When you report changes in your work activity, SSA will give you a receipt to verify that you have properly fulfilled your obligation to report. Keep this receipt with all of your other important papers from Social Security.

SSA will review your disability case periodically to see if your condition has medically improved or if you can perform substantial gainful activity.

If you have been receiving SSDI benefits for at least 24 months, SSA will not conduct a medical review just because you are working. They will not conduct a review to see if your condition has medically improved while you are using a Ticket to Work. SSA will review your case when they receive information that you may have medically improved or during a regularly scheduled medical review.

If you are receiving SSI benefits, SSA may review your case if you work and are eligible for Medicaid While Working under Section 1619(b) or if there are changes in your work status, but not more often than once a year.

If you are receiving SSDI benefits and SSA finds you no longer have a disabling impairment due either to work at the SGA level or medical improvement, they say that your disability "ceased.” If they find that your disability ceased due to work at the SGA level, their decision is effective in the month shown by the evidence. If they find that your disability ceased due to medical improvement, the decision is effective in the month shown by the evidence, or the month they give you written notice, if later. In either case, they pay SSDI benefits for the cessation month and the following two months. These 3 months are known as the "grace period."