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Social Security Disability for Heart Attack and Stroke
Disability Benefits Help You Move On After a Crisis
You worked years in a stressful job, but you made a good living. One day, a heart attack or stroke disrupted everything. Now you can’t work, and you’re devastated.
Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits provide monthly checks so you can keep food on the table. SSD also makes you eligible for Medicare, so you can get the ongoing medical treatment you need.
When you get disability benefits, you get your sense of stability, independence and dignity back — so you can manage your heart disease and focus on living your life.
But applying is hard. Most people get denied.
Angelina Valle is both a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Social Security Disability lawyer helping people in San Jose and Salinas win benefits and move on after health traumas. She makes it her mission to represent people in their time of need. She’s been doing it more than 32 years.
How Do I Qualify for Benefits with Heart Disease or Stroke?
The key to winning Social Security Disability benefits after a heart attack or stroke is the severity of your case. Sometimes you can return to work soon. Other times, you have long-term damage to your body.
If your health is bad enough that you won’t be able to work for at least year — and your cardiologist says that — you can qualify for benefits.
Your doctor might put you medication for a while, then decide you need surgery. The process can take a long time.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) officially lists stroke as a potential qualifying disability under the category of “vascular insult to the brain.” It lists several qualifying cardiovascular conditions, including:
- chronic heart failure
- ischemic heart disease
- aneurysms
Symptoms that can seriously limit your daily life and make working impossible include fatigue, palpitations, chest pain, inability to handle exercise, mental confusion and more.
To better understand your particular chances of winning disability benefits, Angelina Valle & Associates will evaluate you situation for free.
What Other Kinds of Benefits Can I Get?
With all the technology companies here in Silicon Valley, it’s common for workers to feel great pressure in their jobs. Maybe you spent hours looking through telescopes in clean rooms, working on computers or medical devices. You might think your heart attack or stroke was caused by work.
Workplace injuries and illnesses can qualify you for workers’ compensation benefits. But it’s difficult to prove cardiovascular diseases were caused by your job. You might not be able to get workers’ comp.
You may be able to get State Disability Insurance benefits in California. That state program gives you payments for a year. After that, you’ll want the federal Social Security Disability program to take over.
Notice: It can take months, a year or longer to win Social Security Disability benefits, so apply as soon as you can’t work.
The sooner you apply for SSD, the more likely you’ll be able to start receiving benefits once state disability ends.
Even if you think you’ll be able to recover and return to work, it’s better to apply for SSD as soon as you can. You can always withdraw your application later.
You pay no attorney fee up front to get help with your Social Security Disability claim. You only pay a fee when you win benefits, and it comes from a portion of your back benefits.
Angelina Valle deals with the Social Security Disability system all the time and knows how to guide you through it.