Understanding Supplemental Security Income
Continuing Disability Reviews2008 Edition

  WHAT  IS  A  CONTINUING  DISABILITY  REVIEW?  

We periodically review your disability or blindness to decide if you are still disabled or blind. If you are no longer disabled or blind, we will stop your benefits.

We call this review a Continuing Disability Review (CDR). The law requires us to perform a CDR approximately every three years, unless we determine you have a condition that we expect will improve sooner than that. However, if you have a condition that is not expected to improve, we will still review your case, but not as often as every three years

We also review your income, resources, and living arrangements. We call this periodic review a redetermination. For more information on SSI redeterminations, see our chapter on REDETERMINATIONS.

  HOW  DO  CONTINUING  DISABILITY  REVIEWS  WORK  
  FOR  CHILDREN?  

If the child is under age 18, we will do a CDR every three years if we expect the child's condition may improve. We may also do a CDR if we do not expect the child's condition to improve.

If we decided the child was disabled based on low birth weight, we will do a CDR by age 1. However, we will schedule the child's CDR for a later date if at the time of the initial determination we decide that improvement is unlikely to have happened by age 1.

When we perform the CDR, we may ask the child's representative payee to show evidence that the child is, and has been, getting treatment that is medically necessary and available for his or her condition.

If the child's representative payee refuses without good cause to show us this evidence, we may look for another representative payee. We may pay the child directly, if he or she is old enough.

  WHAT  HAPPENS  TO  MY  CHILDHOOD  DISABILITY  
  AT  AGE  18?  

If you are eligible as a child during the month before the month you attain age 18, we will redetermine your disability. When we do the disability redetermination, we will use the rules that we use for adults who are filing new applications for SSI benefits.