Working while receiving long-term disability insurance (LTD) benefits can easily sound like a contradiction in terms. However, many people who leave the full-time workforce due to disability hope to eventually make a full recovery, or hope to continue meaningful work in a limited capacity, even if it is not sufficient to support a household. Working while on LTD rules differ from policy to policy, but many policies do include provisions outlining LTD benefits and employment guidelines for part-time work or a trial period for gradual return to work activities. In addition to seeking tips for working with long-term disability benefits from online sources, you may wish to consider discussing your situation with a disability rights lawyer who can offer you tailored guidance based on the terms of your specific policy.
Can You Work While on Long-Term Disability?
You may be able to do some work in a limited capacity while on long-term disability. However, working while receiving long-term disability requires careful planning to preserve both your health and your benefits. Different insurance companies and even different long-term disability policies will have their own LTD benefits and employment guidelines, so reviewing the working while on LTD rules for your specific policy is an important step to determining what your options may be. Because many people who consider working while receiving long-term disability benefits are out of work partly due to a physician’s recommendations to avoid certain types of activities or certain levels of exertion, you will also likely want to discuss your plans with healthcare professionals who can monitor your physical and mental condition and offer you guidance for protecting your health if you decide to try going back to work.
What Happens When an Employee Goes on Long-Term Disability?
Many of the differences between short-term disability income insurance (STD) and LTD are features of the policies themselves: the timeframes they cover, the criteria they apply in determining benefits eligibility. Sometimes, however, there are differences in the experience of going on long-term disability vs. STD that are instead functions of practical differences in the contexts in which these two types of disability insurance tend to be used.
Short-Term Disability and Protected Leave
One of these differences concerns employment status. Both short-term and long-term disability insurance plans are designed to protect policyholders’ incomes, rather than their jobs. In this sense, STD and LTD are alike. However, STD benefit periods are often quite similar to the up to 12 weeks of unpaid protected leave employees who meet certain qualifying criteria may take under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Many employees who apply for short-term disability benefits have job protection under the FMLA for some or all of the same period they are receiving STD benefit payments, even though the STD policy itself does not provide any job protection benefits. FMLA leave on its own is unpaid, so often employees who need to take FMLA leave to recover from a major illness or injury will work with their employers’ human resources (HR) office to coordinate the FMLA leave and the STD benefits. For employees who are able to return to work within the maximum of 12 weeks protected under the FMLA, this experience can end up feeling as though short-term disability and job protection go hand-in-hand, even though legally the federal law that protects unpaid leave and the private insurance policies that protect income are completely separate.
Long-Term Disability Employment Status
Long-term disability benefits are not normally available until at least 90 days after a disability begins, so FMLA leave will usually not overlap with LTD benefit periods at all. This gap can mean that individuals applying for long-term disability benefits are essentially already without jobs, but it does not always mean that the former employer has closed the door on the possibility of part-time work or a return to employment in the future. Particularly when the employer-employee relationship has been a positive one over an extended period of time, both sides of the equation often have questions about whether the former employee can take on some limited part-time or occasional work for the company without risking the long-term disability benefit payments that now form the individual’s primary source of income.
What Are the Maximum Hours You Can Work While on Disability?
Many people who are no longer able to work full-time are curious about LTD benefits and employment guidelines. Often long-term disability recipients still have days when their symptoms are less severe, or they have limited stamina that may carry them through a few hours per day or per week. Because the impact of many disabilities can be felt in the time demands of managing the underlying condition, and in the exhaustion that often comes from living with illness or the consequences of injury, it is natural for these individuals to conceptualize their working potential in terms of available or sustainable time: the duration of effort. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal law that sets minimum wage and overtime pay rules, also relies on an essentially time-based understanding of work: Minimum wage is set at a specific amount per hour worked, and overtime pay requirements are based on the number of hours worked within a seven-day period.
Duration and Frequency of Effort: Working While Receiving Long-Term Disability
A commonly misunderstood facet of living with a disabling condition is that, while it is true that for many people there are certain activities they cannot do at all, for the vast majority of disabled people there are far more activities that they cannot do regularly, or for extended periods of time. Sitting, standing, walking, and lifting are among the most recognizable examples, but there are many more that are not so easily seen from the outside.
Although not all people find the same activities challenging, most people instinctively think of how much they can work in terms of how difficult a job role’s core tasks are for them personally, the frequency with which they would need to perform those tasks in order to deliver a satisfactory performance, and the duration of time over which the necessary level of effort would need to be sustained. A disabled person seeking tips for working with long-term disability will usually start by ruling out jobs whose core tasks are known to be unmanageable based on the individual’s specific condition. From there, the estimation of personal work capacity often becomes a complicated equation calculated from the three variables of effort, frequency, and duration.
Working While on LTD Rules: Income-Based Limits
Somewhat frustrating for many people exploring their options for working while receiving long-term disability benefits, most long-term disability insurance policies tend to frame working capacity not so much in terms of hours worked, but in terms of dollars earned. Many LTD recipients find this metric baffling at first glance: After all, most of us are well aware that some of the easiest ways to make money involve sitting back and letting investments generate income, while many of the most difficult forms of labor are also among those that pay the lowest average wages.
LTD Benefits and Employment Guidelines: Earnings and Self-Sufficiency
If this frustration resonates for you, it may help to remember that long-term disability benefits, like Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), are intended to partially replace lost income, rather than to compensate directly for the loss of physical or mental capacity for work. Although SSDI is based on a complex combination of factors dominated by the taxes an individual has paid into the Social Security system over the decade prior to filing for benefits, while long-term disability insurance is typically computed as a percentage of the policyholder’s pre-disability earnings, both systems operate on the assumption that individuals who can earn enough to clear a specified threshold can earn enough to support themselves without assistance.
Under this logic, then, the Social Security Administration (SSA) applies the rubric of Substantial Gainful Activity (SGA). SSDI applicants whose monthly earnings exceed a certain threshold, updated annually, are automatically disqualified from receiving benefits. Individuals already approved for SSDI who begin earning income over the threshold amount are subject to seeing their benefits terminated. Instead of a threshold like SGA, which applies across the board, most LTD policies will use a cutoff point based on percentage of former income earned. These percentages vary by policy, and there can always be exceptions to the most common practices, so be sure you understand exactly how working limits are set under the terms of your specific policy. Generally, however, policies that do not treat any work activity as disqualifying are likely to calibrate limits based on income earned, rather than hours worked.
What Happens if You Start Working While on Disability?
Working while on LTD rules depend largely on the terms of the individual policy. In some cases, the type, amount, and perceived intensity of the work you do may also be a factor in how LTD benefits and employment guidelines affect your situation.
Although LTD policies generally set earned income thresholds for loss of benefits in a manner similar to the way the Social Security Administration (SSA) uses SGA to determine whether an individual’s earning capacity disqualifies him or her from receiving SSDI benefits, many long-term disability insurance companies also maintain a degree of surveillance on the policyholders who are receiving benefits for approved long-term disability claims. The goal of such surveillance is not necessarily to look for evidence of work activity specifically, but rather to monitor for signs that the individual is capable of a greater level of activity of any kind than indicated in the statements and other materials filed in support of his or her long-term disability application.
Tips for Working With Long-Term Disability Monitoring of Daily Activities
Many individuals who have to go through an extended review process for long-term disability claims will be familiar with this type of surveillance from seeing its results already entered in their records, particularly if there was ever legal action associated with their claims. Often insurance companies will hire private investigators to collect video evidence of claimants’ activities in an attempt to discredit the impairments individuals have reported in filing their claims. Insurance providers also very commonly impose renewal requirements under which individuals receiving benefits must periodically submit updated medical evidence to prove their continuing disabled status. Another common practice is subjecting approved LTD claims to regular or randomized internal audits.
Each of these scenarios can lead to another round of investigation and surveillance. Any activity discovered during that surveillance that appears to be out of line with the limitations described in the individual’s claim record has the potential to be cited as evidence in a decision to terminate benefits, whether the activity in question is work-related or not.
Working While on LTD: Rules for Timely Notice
The wording will vary somewhat from one policy to another, but anyone thinking about working while receiving long-term disability benefits should review their own policy documents carefully for terms outlining LTD recipients’ obligations for providing timely notice to the insurance company if they become able to return to work, and for required disclosures concerning sources of income beyond their long-term disability benefit payments. Often those sources include workers’ compensation disability benefits or SSDI, so not all income sources that require reporting will be related to work activity.
Although returning to work can sometimes put your benefits eligibility at risk, it is also true that many long-term disability policies include provisions that allow a long-term disability recipient to receive partial benefits while working part-time. Some plans may even offer LTD benefits and employment guidelines that incorporate trial employment options on a model similar to the nine-month trial period the SSA offers to SSDI recipients. Because working while receiving long-term disability benefits can be a high-stakes endeavor with dramatic personal and financial consequences, you may wish to review your LTD policy terms with an attorney who can offer tips for working with long-term disability based on the specific requirements outlined by your individual policy.
Can I Get a Job While on Long-Term Disability?
Nothing prevents a person who is receiving long-term disability benefits from seeking a job. However, doing so can put your benefits at risk of termination. If you have truly made substantial strides toward recovery and you and your medical team feel that you can safely return to the full-time workforce, this may not be an issue. If your condition is more tenuous, or if you are hoping to try working part-time but doubt your ability to meet the demands of a full 40-hour workweek, then you will want to review the terms of your specific policy carefully. Some long-term disability insurance policies allow individuals to work part-time while receiving partial benefits. Often the policies that make this allowance will apply a benefit reduction, similar to the offset provisions most policies include for SSDI and workers’ compensation benefits. If you are thinking about working while on LTD, rules covering LTD benefits and employment guidelines will be set primarily by the terms of your specific policy. Because working while receiving long-term disability benefits requires careful coordination with policy requirements, you may wish to consider getting tips for working with long-term disability part-time or on a trial basis from an experienced disability lawyer.
Balancing Work and Benefits While on Long-Term Disability
Successfully navigating the rules for working while receiving long-term disability benefits requires a clear understanding of your policy’s terms, careful coordination with your healthcare providers, and, often, legal guidance to protect your rights. Even limited or part-time work can have financial and medical implications, so it is essential to document your condition, comply with all reporting requirements, and remain within any income or activity limits your policy sets. By approaching the process thoughtfully and strategically, you can explore meaningful work opportunities while preserving the support your LTD benefits provide.
