Differences in SSDI and Workers' Compensation
Serving Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and surrounding areas
If you’re suffering from an injury or medical condition that prevents you from working, you may have questions about both workers’ compensation and Social Security Disability Insurance.
The two are very different programs, but both are designed to help provide benefits to injured workers in the U.S. Here’s a brief recap of the two topics. For more detailed information at any time, please contact one our experienced attorneys at Stipe Injury Law.
Social Security Disability Insurance
Social Security Disability Insurance, or SSDI, is a federal-government-run insurance program of the Social Security Administration.
This program offers financial benefits to workers who become totally disabled for a year or more and are unable to continue to work. A qualifying disability can be a result of an accident or a disease or other factors. This program does not offer benefits for partial or short-term disability.
Workers must have worked long enough and recently enough to have enough work credits to quality for benefits. (You earn work credits by paying Social Security, or FICA, payroll taxes.)
The disabling condition that qualifies for SSDI benefits does not have to be related to a person’s work environment.
Workers’ Compensation
Workers’ compensation is an employer-funded insurance program, required by the state of Oklahoma, as well as other states. Employers must buy insurance that protects its workers should they be injured while on-the-job.
Workers’ comp, as it is often called, also is designed to cover work-related illnesses, diseases and cumulative traumas, such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
A worker who is considered disabled by a medical team for five or more days from an injury or illness caused by a work environment, can be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits.
The disability can be total or partial, short-term or long-term.
For more information on workers’ compensation benefits or assistance with a SSDI claim, the attorneys at Stipe Injury Law can help. In fact, we’ve been helping clients in the Oklahoma City area for more than 50 years get the benefits they deserve. We believe in establishing lasting relationships — based on integrity and respect.
Although medical professionals are required by law to exercise the utmost care, skill and diligence when treating their patients, it is estimated that over 90,000 people every year are either injured or killed due to physician or nurse error. 
When workers are injured, employers and their workers compensation insurance carrier are responsible for providing those employees with the medical care they need as quickly as possible. 
If you are disabled, and can no longer work, the federal government offers disability payments to individuals who qualify under the Social Security Disability Insurance plan. 
