I'm completely lost as to how this process works. I have a decade and change of documentated mental health treatment, inpatient, partial care, and outpatient, dating back to when I was 16. I attempted suicide during my junior year of high school, at age 17, and an IEP was implemented. I spent the majority of April to the beginning of October at various psychiatric institutions voluntarily. I was told I will be eligible to collect $764.25 a month, with only a small amount given for the approximate period of June to November. My main question is that I've been led to believe I may be able to procure some sort of retroactive payments piggybacking on the IEP. It is not my intention to rob Peter to pay Paul, but the one good thing about the 6+ months I voluntarily commited myself, is that I now know my definitive diagnosis is Borderline Personality Disorder (explains a lot). Thank you for any clarity you may be able to provide.

Hi,

I'm not sure what you mean by an IEP. I assume that you mean that you've been approved for Social Security and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability, and are wondering if you are due any back pay. I can't answer that because I don't know all of the facts of your case, but I can give you some general information.

Social Security disability benefits can be paid retroactively for up to 12 months prior to the month that you file your application, but only if you met all of the requirements for entitlement that long before you filed for benefits. On the other hand, SSI is a needs based program, and benefits cannot be paid for any months prior to when you file your application.

In order to qualify for Social Security disability benefits, you must be determined to have a medical impairment that keeps you from being able to work, and you must not be working and earning more than an average of $1130 per month. Additionally, no Social Security disability benefits are paid for the first 5 months that a person meets the requirements for benefits, so the only way that a person would be due back pay is if their claim takes longer than that to process, or if they file for benefits well after they became disabled and stopped working.

For more information on disability benefits, refer to Social Security's website: https://www.ssa.gov/disabilityssi/.

Best, Jerry