Why Is There a Waiting Period for Social Security Disability Benefits?

You finally get the letter. After months of waiting, Social Security has approved your disability benefits.

It’s been a long, uncertain road since you first applied for SSDI. You sent in your medical records. You fought past an initial denial. Unable to work, you wondered how you’d keep paying your bills. But you did everything right, you managed to scrape by, and at last, your patience has paid off.

Or so you thought. Just as you begin to breathe a sigh of relief, you see the fine print: the system is telling you to wait even longer. There’s a five-month waiting period for Social Security disability benefits before your payments begin—and a two-year wait for Medicare on top of that.

You knew getting approved wouldn’t be easy. But you didn’t expect another delay after the approval. Now you’re asking: Why is there a waiting period for Social Security disability benefits at all? And are there any exceptions to the rule?

Waiting is a Part of the System

Tom Petty’s classic lyrics insist that “The waiting is the hardest part.”

But if you’re waiting for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), the hardest part might be knowing whether you’ll even make it through the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) notoriously long SSDI waiting period.

In recent years, the average processing time for initial disability applications has nearly doubled to record highs. According to the latest update from SSA, in July 2025, applicants are currently waiting around 230 days to receive an initial disability decision.

That’s almost a year for a local field office to approve or deny your claim and issue a decision letter. And it doesn’t include the lengthy appeals process, which many applicants are subject to, since only about 35 – 40 percent of initial disability applications are approved. After that, an applicant might have to endure the reconsideration process, and then, wait for a hearing in front of an administrative judge.

Claims are often approved at the hearing stage. But reaching that stage can take years.

As of May 2025, the average hearing wait times in Ohio are around 6 – 10 months. Those months, however, are on top of the initial decision (~230 days) waiting period and the waiting period for reconsideration (7 -8 months on average).

These waiting periods for Social Security disability benefits are more than an inconvenience. For some applicants, they can be matter of life and death, or at the very least, financial survival.

Between 2008 and 2019, more than 1% of SSDI applicants (110,000 people) died waiting for the appeals process to play out, while from 2015 to 2019 another 48,000 Americans filed for bankruptcy awaiting a disability decision from SSA, a government audit shows.

As processing backlogs and wait times have increased, so have the number of Americans who’ve died waiting for their benefit decision. 30,000 applicants died in 2023 alone awaiting their SSDI fate.

The Five Month Wait Period

Designed as a safety net for disabled workers, SSDI has taken on the more unpleasant connotation of a bureaucratic nightmare, difficult to access and full of complicated rules that make a Social Security disability attorney a virtual must-have.

Most applicants understand they face a long, uphill battle when applying for benefits. What they may not know is that getting an application approved sets into motion two separate, mandatory waiting periods:

• A five-month waiting period before SSDI payments begin, except for those who were previous SSDI recipients or who had a previous disabling condition in the five years prior to the onset of their current disability
• A 24-month waiting period before Medicare kicks in

As SSA puts it, “your entitlement to benefit payments will begin in the sixth full month after the date we find that your disability began.”

For example, if your disability began on June 15, 2023 and you applied on July 1, 2023, you are entitled to benefit payments beginning the month of December 2023, your sixth full month of disability, if approved.

• Retroactive SSDI payments can cover up to 12 months before the application date, but the applicant must present evidence proving their disability and eligibility during that period.
• The 24-month Medicare waiting period for those receiving SSDI benefits is in addition to the initial five-month waiting period for SSDI cash benefits. This means that individuals typically wait 29 months (5-month SSDI waiting period + 24-month Medicare waiting period) from the date of disability onset before their Medicare coverage begins.

So why do these delays exist? The short answer: politics and budget math.

The five-month SSDI delay was written into the law when disability benefits were first introduced in the 1950s. Some lawmakers argued at the time that SSDI should only support long-term, permanent disabilities, and the delay would help screen out short-term conditions.

The same goes for the 24-month Medicare delay. It was a political compromise meant to limit the scope and cost of the new coverage. The Medicare waiting period was added in 1972, when SSDI recipients were first granted Medicare eligibility.

Eliminating the 24-month Medicare waiting period for Social Security disabled-worker beneficiaries would cost the federal government an estimated $110 billion over ten years, according to a 2009 estimate by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It is similarly projected that reducing or eliminating the five-month waiting period for Social Security disability benefits would cost the government billions of dollars per year.

The waiting periods are there not because they reflect the realities of living with a disability, but to slow down access and save the system money.

Built into the system is the assumption that applicants can “wait it out.” For many, though, that’s just not realistic. The human costs of delaying disabled worker benefits must be considered along with the fiscal costs.

People who are too sick or injured to work often face months without income while bills pile up. They might also be dealing with loss of employer-sponsored health insurance, delays in receiving critical healthcare or going without care entirely, and the risks of eviction, foreclosure, and bankruptcy.

Are There Any Exceptions to the SSDI Waiting Period?

Not everyone has to wait five months for their first disability check. In addition to those who were previously disabled or previously receiving SSDI, limited exceptions exist for the following:

• ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease): Since 2020, people with ALS no longer face the five-month SSDI or 24-month Medicare wait.
• Compassionate Allowances: Certain serious conditions like advanced cancers or rare genetic disorders may speed up approval, although the waiting periods often still apply.
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI): This is a different disability program for people with low income and assets. There’s no five-month wait, but eligibility rules are stricter.

Can the Waiting Period For Social Security Disability Benefits Be Changed?

Yes, but it would take an act of Congress.

Disability advocates and some lawmakers have pushed for years to eliminate or shorten the waiting periods for both SSDI and Medicare.

Legislation introduced earlier this year (H.R. 930, the Stop the Wait Act of 2025) would gradually reduce the five-month waiting period before eliminating it entirely in the year 2030. The bill would also eliminate the 24-month waiting period for disabled workers to become eligible for Medicare. Ohio congresswoman Emilia Sykes co-sponsored the legislation.

Can an Attorney Help to Get My Disability Benefits Faster?

While the five-month waiting period for Social Security disability benefits is mandatory in almost all situations, an experienced disability attorney at Graham Law can help strengthen your case after you’ve filed your initial claim, guide you through appeals, maximize potential back pay, and identify any exceptions that may apply to your case, such as an ALS diagnosis or expedited processing for “critical” cases.

There are also instances where we can request an on-the-record decision or attorney advisor opinion prior to a disability hearing.

To find out your SSDI application and appeal options, contact Graham Law for a free case review.