Public Benefits

Parents giving gifts to children will sometimes provide nothing to the child with special needs while giving substantial amounts to the child’s siblings. This planning strategy can lead to trouble, as a recent Wisconsin case highlights.

I am currently receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and my mother, with the help of her attorney, has set up a special needs trust for me. Do I necessarily need a special needs trust and would an inheritance jeopardize...

The budget deal signed by President Obama increases funding for the Social Security disability trust fund but also makes several small but important changes to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program.

My daughter's first-party special needs trust was paying for several services that weren't covered by Medicaid.  I know that if my daughter dies, the state has the right to recover funds from my daughter's trust for Medicaid services that it...

In one of its first acts of the new Congress, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives changed its rules to prevent lawmakers from shifting money from the Social Security retirement trust fund to the Social Security disability trust fund unless the...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) recently issued an Emergency Message to all personnel requiring workers to specifically inform Supplemental Security Income (SSI) applicants or beneficiaries of the reasons a special needs trust has been rejected by the agency.

Because of her disability, a person receiving SSI may not have worked long enough to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits on her own work record, but many SSI beneficiaries who became disabled prior to turning 22 years...

With a special needs trust that requires Medicaid to be paid back following the beneficiary’s death, what is the statute of limitations for that repayment? If Medicaid has not asked to be paid back, when can the proceeds be distributed?...

A notorious Kentucky attorney who called himself "Mr. Social Security" has been indicted in federal court after an ongoing FBI investigation uncovered evidence that he worked with doctors and an administrative law judge to procure hundreds of millions of dollars...