WISE Ticket to Work Webinar
Choosing a Service Provider That’s Right for You!
November 17, 2021

Speakers: Sarah Hyland (Moderator), Ray Cebula (Presenter)

SARAH>> Good afternoon and welcome to today’s Ticket to Work webinar, Ticket to Work: Choosing a Service Provider That’s Right for You. My name is Sarah Hyland, and I’m a member of the Ticket to Work team, and I will be your moderator for today’s webinar. We are so glad that you were able to take time and spend with us today to learn about Social Security’s Ticket to Work Program and how it can help you as you start on your path of financial independence through work. Each of us has our own journey and we hope you find information today that will assist you in moving forward on your path to employment. Let’s get started by going over some functions of the webinar platform so that you can interact and get the most information out of today’s webinar.

First, you can manage your audio using the audio option at the top of your screen. The audio option is an icon that looks like a microphone or telephone. All attendees will be muted throughout today’s webinar, thus, when presented with the options for joining the audio conference, choose Listen Only which appears at the bottom right in the audio menu. Clicking Listen Only allows the sound to be broadcast through your computer’s speakers or headphones. Please make sure your speakers are turned on or your headphones are plugged in. If you are unable to connect to the audio with your computer or prefer to listen to the webinar by phone, please dial 1-800-832-0736 and enter access code 4189148#.

Next, we will share some information about webinar accessibility. On the Adobe Connect platform, you will notice four boxes on your screen. These boxes are called pods. We have the presentation pod where the slides appear. Below that is the closed captioning pod. In the top right-hand corner, you will see the Q&A pod and below the Q&A pod is the Web Links pod. We will talk about these pods in more detail a little later.

If you need assistance navigating Adobe Connect, an accessibility user guide with a list of controls is available at http://bit.ly/adobe-accessibility. This link is also available in the Web Links pod at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and is titled Adobe Accessibility User Guide. Real-time captioning is available and is displayed in the captioning pod which is the box that appears below your slide that is on your screen right now. The captioning link can be found in the Web Links pod under the title Closed Captioning.

If you are fluent in ASL and you would like support for today’s webinar, follow the link below that provides instructions to connect with an interpreter through the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, Video Relay Service, VRS. The ASL User Guide can also be found in the Web Links pod under the title ASL User Guide.

We are here today to answer questions that you may have on the Ticket to Work Program. Please send your questions in at any time throughout the webinar by typing them into the Q&A pod. We will direct the questions to our speaker during the Q&A portions of our webinar. We will be addressing questions at two different points throughout today’s presentation. So, go ahead and send in those questions and we will do our best to answer as many of them as possible. If you are listening by phone and are not logged into the webinar, you may ask questions by sending an email to Ticket to Work. The email address is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov.

Another resource that we think you will find extremely helpful in connecting with different resources mentioned today is the Web Links pod which you will find at the bottom right-hand side of your screen. This pod lists all of the links to the resources presented during today’s webinar. To access any of these resources, simply highlight the topic that you are interested in and would like to connect to and then select the Browse To button at the bottom of the pod. You will be taken to the website requested.

If you are listening by phone and not logged into the webinar or don’t have access to the Web Links pod, you can email Ticket to Work. The email address is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov, or reference the confirmation email that you received for today’s webinar for a list of available resources. Also, please note that SSA cannot guarantee and is not responsible for the accessibility of external websites.

Today’s webinar is being recorded and a copy of it will be available within two weeks on the Choose Work website which can be accessed at http://bit.ly/WISE_OnDemand. This link, as well as others, can be found in the Web Links pod that we just talked about at the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. It will be titled WISE Webinar Archive.

We hope that everyone has a great experience on the webinar today. If you run into any technical difficulties, however, please use the Q&A pod to send us a message, or you can send us an email at the Ticket to Work email address, which is webinars@choosework.ssa.gov. 

As I mentioned earlier, my name is Sarah Hyland and I am a member of the Ticket to Work team. I am very excited to be here with you today as your moderator. We are also delighted to have Ray Cebula with us here today. Ray received his law degree from the University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce School of Law. He spent 23 years providing legal services to individuals with disabilities in their interactions with Social Security. He became part of Cornell University’s Work Incentive Support Center in 2000, and in 2005 he joined the staff of Cornell’s Yang Tan Institute on Employment and Disability where he now serves as the program director of YTI Online, Cornell’s Work Incentive Practitioner Credentialing Program.

And during today’s webinar, Ray will cover Social Security’s Ticket Program, establishing work goals, identifying your employment team, receiving benefits counseling, and choosing the right service provider. And it is our hope that at the close of today’s webinar you will better understand the Ticket Program, be able to set work goals, know your employment team, and, finally, be able to choose a service provider to help you meet your employment goals.

During today’s webinar, we will not be answering questions specific to COVID-19. If you would like more information on Social Security and the coronavirus, please visit https://www.ssa.gov/coronavirus/. This link can also be found in the Web Links pod. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce Ray who is going to start us off with an introduction into the Ticket to Work Program. Thanks, Ray. Ray, [inaudible] muted, if you want to go ahead.

Oh, okay.

Thanks, Ray. It’s nice to have you with us today.

RAY>> Yes. Thank you, Sarah. You know, today, we’re going to start off with the Ticket to Work Program and supporting your journey to work. We’re going to start pretty much at the beginning. So, we need to quickly jump into this and talk about the two disability programs Social Security administers. It’s very important that you know which benefit you’re receiving so that we can get you the right help and talk in the language that you need to hear about the program, because they are two very different programs.

The first one is the Social Security Disability Insurance Program, commonly known as SSDI. And this is exactly what it says, it’s an insurance program. When you are working and your employer is withholding FICA taxes from you, you are paying into the Social Security system for retirement and for disability purposes. It’s all going to depend how old you are, but you are required to work for a base period and earn a certain amount of money to become insured for disability.

The other program is SSI, Supplemental Security Income. This is a needs-based federal welfare program. It provides the same amount of money to everybody and then looks at their income, whether it’s earned or unearned, looks at resources to determine how much money you may get in each month. The maximum this year is 794 dollars. Each of these programs comes with a healthcare plan. The insurance side comes with Medicare. The needs-based side, SSI, comes with Medicaid.

Why it’s important when we start talking about work incentives, we need to know what type of benefit you receive. Even though some of the work incentives sound alike and some of them are exactly alike, they are used very differently in each program. In order for us not to confuse the situation when we are very sure that you are getting one of these benefits, we can talk more simply and directly towards your situation.

Here's another great start. You know, sign up for a My Social Security account. I’ve got one. I’ve had it for a couple of years now and I’m actually in there much more than I expected to be. This is a great place if you are meeting with somebody and they need to know what benefit you receive and you’re not sure, you can use a cell phone to get into this, you can use a computer to get into this, and it’s going to have all of that information right away. So, it’s always at hand. So, it doesn’t matter right now if you’re working. If you have worked and there’s a Social Security account there for you, access it. It’s good to know what’s in there. It’s good to make sure it’s all correct.

You can set one up at ssa.gov/myaccount. And I really suggest that everybody have one of these accounts. I check it every year and Social Security sends me a little note saying, “Ray, it’s time to check to make sure your wages are posted,” and I go in and I make sure they’re posted right and it’s all working out. If I retire today, I know how much money I’m going to get by looking at my account. If I’m going to retire in five years, it’ll give me an estimate as to how much I’m going to get. If I become disabled today, I’ll know how much I’m going to receive. Lots of good stuff. So, make sure you try to get one of those set up. It’s a real easy thing to do. If you have a computer or a cell phone, if I managed to set mine up, you can set yours up.

So, starting your journey to work, this is something that’s very personal to everybody who’s listening. No one is saying anything like, “You have to go to work.” We would like you to consider that, but only you can decide if work is the right choice for you. What we hope to give you is enough information so that you can make an informed choice based on your circumstances, whether or not work is the right road for you to travel. 

Why choose work? Some people, because of the severeness of the disability, can’t earn a living through employment, but a disability doesn’t need to stop you. Working part-time, building up your capacity for work, you know, over time, getting the accommodations in place that you might need to succeed, all of that can take a long period of time. We just want you to feel comfortable deciding that, yeah, this is something that you want to try.

And a lot of times people find that there are lots of rewards to work. Not only will you end up with more money, but there are non-monetary reasons why work is a good thing. It gets you out of the house. It keeps you occupied. It gives you self-esteem because you work hard, you feel good about that, and you may be able to get some financial reward from this. There’s nothing wrong with being able to go to the movies and have pizza with some friends on a Friday night after a long week’s work. So, you need to consider all of that.

Now, the Ticket to Work Program, this is a program run by Social Security. It happened in 1999, it started providing help to people in the 2000s. So, it’s been around for a long while. It’s free and it’s voluntary. That’s what you need to know. It’s not going to cost you a cent and it is completely voluntary. If you decide you don’t want to do this, if you decide you don’t want to consider work right now, no harm, no penalty.

What we can offer you through that Ticket to Work Program is career development, anyone who is ages 18 through 64 who receives a Social Security disability benefit, either SSDI or SSI, and wants to go to work. That’s all that’s required. The Ticket to Work Program connects you with free employment services. What can these services do? Among other things, they can help you decide if working is going to be the right choice. Is this going to be good for you? Are you ready to start it now? Do you need some extra training? All of that kind of stuff. Work might not be right today, but if you’re preparing to go to work and you need a little bit of training or you need to learn how to do the job you had before you became disabled differently, then we can help get you prepared to work.

Some of your team that we’re going to be building over the course of this webinar are going to be able to help you locate a job. Most of these people are going to be local and they’re going to know. You know, if you are in Denver, Colorado, they are going to know what the job market is in Denver, Colorado and who’s hiring at the moment. And if there’s a job that you have the skills to do and decide you want to do in your home area, then they will point and help you get that job.

And then succeed at work, this is a very important part of all this. Once you get a job, we’re not going anywhere. We will monitor you as long as you want us to, to make sure you’re able to succeed. Many of us start a job and there are things that happen that we just don’t expect and, “Oh, that was a curveball. I didn’t know I was going to be doing that. I think I might need a reasonable accommodation to be able to do that the way my employer wants me to do it. How do I ask for that?” Well, we will be there with you so that we can suggest ways that you might want to talk to your employer about that accommodation or get you to somebody who can help request that accommodation. We don’t want to just get you a job and say, “Bye-bye.” We want you to leave us when you are a successful worker.

So, what is the Ticket Program? You can learn more about it and there’s a link in the web pod at What is Social Security’s Ticket to Work Program at https://bit.ly/ttw-program. It gives you some good information, more in-depth information than we’re going to be able to cover today.

The Ticket to Work Help Line is a great way to start. As we go through today, there are lots of entry doors and none of them are the wrong door because you’ll get what you need. The Ticket to Work Help Line is a great way to start, though. You don’t have to leave your house. You can be completely anonymous. Call that Ticket line and they’ll give you some information about your eligibility, if you decide to divulge that much information. It’s a matter of your age, whether or not you’ve already been determined disabled, and if you give them your name and the Social Security number, they’re going to find out if you have that Ticket or when it’s going to be delivered to you. Call that number, 866-968-7842, for TTY users, 866-833-2967, anytime Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Somebody will take that call and get you information. A good, easy way to get started.

So, now we’re going to look at exploring your work goals. Most of us – I think we all needed a little help to figure out what our work goal was going to be. It didn’t just pop into our heads one time and be the right choice, at least that didn’t happen for me.

Why set a goal? Well, if you set a goal, setting a goal is as simple as making a grocery list. Every time you check off an item and you throw it in your cart, you’re making progress towards that goal. Measuring your progress along your pathway to a career is a good thing because when you begin to doubt yourself, when you begin to think this isn’t working, how am I going to continue this right now, if you’ve got that career path mapped out on a piece of paper and you’ve checked the first six or seven steps, you are reminded of how much progress you’ve made and you’re able to hold yourself accountable because that next step is due next week. You need to do that one next week, so let’s take a breath, get our mind straight, and work towards checking that one off next week.

It helps you to keep motivated because you have accomplished a lot. During this process, you can choose to join and take the journey with us. You’re going to accomplish an awful lot every step of the way. By staying motivated and keeping on track, you’re only increasing your chances of success. Everybody who’s listening to me right now can be successful, you just got to give yourself a chance.

What are your work goals? We’ve got some slides to talk about that. It’s really fun to talk to somebody about work. What type of work do you like to do? If you don’t know, what are your interests? I remember talking to a transition-age kid who came into my office with a skateboard and his mother, you know, but the skateboard was what caught my eye, and I remember looking at the skateboard and I asked him, “What kind of work would you like to try this summer during the school break?” “Oh, I don’t know.” And I started talking to him about his skateboard and we ended up getting him a part-time job in a skateboarding store. He made his own skateboard. He knew how to fix them. He was interested.

What kind of job do I want now? Well, that kid didn’t have a whole lot of skill. It was his first job, but he had a lot of skills when it came to putting a skateboard together or fixing the one I brought him with a broken wheel. What kind of job does he want five years from now? It was really wonderful to see his eyes light up when I said, “How about we get a job in a skateboard shop and what we’re going to work to in five years is you managing that shop? Maybe in ten years you’re going to have your own skateboard shop.” All it takes is one thing that you’re interested in and we can take that from job to career. It’s a great thing because we’re all interested in something.

Consider these questions. What are your long-term career goals? Your first job – I remember my first job, and not fondly. It was a nasty job, but you got to start somewhere; right? That job quickly convinced me that I didn’t want to do this for a living, so let’s try to figure something else out. Where do you want to work? Do you want to work at home? Do you want to work in an office? Do you want to work outside? There are lots of jobs.

When I think about outside, now that I’m here in New Mexico, there are lots of jobs that people have and they’re outside most of their working day. If you go to a national park, there are rangers everywhere. There are all kinds of people, you know, ticket-takers, food service workers in those parks, and they get to work in beautiful places, a lot of the time outside. Would you rather work in an office? I did work in an office for many years and I enjoyed it very much, and I’ve worked at home for the last 20 years and I like that a whole lot, too. And they both have benefits. They both have negatives. Just got to balance them out.

Do I want to be self-employed or work for somebody else? I have never wanted to be self-employed. I’ve never wanted to be responsible for making my own money. I like working for somebody else and being paid every two weeks. But maybe you want to start your own business. That works for us. We can help you with the viability of your business concept, get a business plan ready for you, try to find resources to help you get some stock to get things sold and advertising, stuff like that. There are many different plans we could use. Just got to think about it.

Once you know the kind of job that you want, ask yourself what you need to succeed. What do you need right now? Do you need training or education? If you’re going to be your own boss and be self-employed, I think everybody would need some training on how to run a small business. Do you need a résumé to get a job at a place of employment? How about interview skills? I think that my last résumé and my last interview was 20 years ago. If I needed to get a job right now, I wouldn’t know how to begin to put a résumé together. So, I’d reach out to some for résumé help.

And I don’t really know what an interview is like anymore. It was a long time ago. Practicing interviewing is a wonderful technique. It will give you a lot of on-the-spot questions and answers, you know, how to respond quickly, what do you do if you really don’t know. I mean, there’s a lot of tips somebody else can give you for interviewing skills.

How about understanding how work is going to affect your benefits and healthcare? As I said very early on, there’s one set of work incentives for SSDI, another set for SSI. In either case, a benefits planner can help you make sure that work will pay and that you will have more money at the end of the month than you currently do on benefits. Protecting healthcare, which is critical to every worker, we’ll make sure and I can assure you that you need to work real hard to lose Medicare or Medicaid. You need to be working for a long while. So, everything is pretty safe.

What we need to explain to you individually is how is your Medicaid going to be affected. You may be recategorized, but it’s the same benefit. What happens when you go over the next income level? There’s always a place for you in the Medicaid system until you are way, way above the income guidelines, which hardly exist. 

Reasonable accommodations and assistive technology, lots of us use that all of the time, you know, all the time. What kind of accommodations do you think you’d need? Is it equipment-based? Do you need a larger screen on your computer? That’s not a big-ticket item for an employer. That should be an easy accommodation. If you’re using a wheelchair and it’s a large wheelchair, do you need to have the door on one of those offices widened? That’s not a big-ticket item either, but how do we approach an employer to ask for something like that? Or assistive technology, it could be as easy as a cell phone so you can communicate with other people in the workplace via text if you’re more comfortable doing that. We can help you make that request or we can talk to you about how you might want to have that conversation.

So, we’re going to move in now and we’re going to meet your employment team. Again, every employment team member is up to you to choose. How many of us you want on your team is a matter for you to choose. And we’re all just going to be waiting for you to come to us for help to begin this journey to work.

So, you’ve got lots of people who are going to be providing you with free services, and your progress will then allow the team members to get paid by Social Security. So, the Ticket providers include employment networks – and we’re going to talk about each of these separately. Workforce ENs, workforce employment networks, the One-Stop centers, the American Job Centers, those are all employment networks for Social Security purposes as well. The State Vocational Rehabilitation agencies. The Work Incentives Planning and Assistance projects, those are the benefits planners who will tell you if you go to work and you work 20 hours a week, earning 15 dollars an hour, what will happen to your SSDI or what will happen to your SSI.

And then we have the Protection and Advocacy for Beneficiaries of Social Security, the PABSS organizations. That was my job before I joined Cornell and we provided free legal services to people who faced barriers going to work. It could be something like an eviction. If you come to me and we’re working together, trying to get you a job and you’ve got an eviction hearing next week, you’re not in a good place to decide you’re ready to go to work. You need help with the eviction. Then we can talk about work. I have done that for people.

Or somebody during the interview, your prospective employer asks an illegal question or something not appropriate, how do you deal with that? Or if you’re on the job and the employer says, “No, we’re not going to provide that large screen monitor for you,” PABSS was there. It’s not like we just threw lawsuits around. We would call the employers and explain what was going on. Most times, that was all it took. But they are there for you should you need legal intervention.

So, let’s talk about the employment networks. An EN, as they’re affectionately called, is a private or public organization that has the specific agreement with Social Security to provide free employment services to Ticket holders. Many state public workforce systems, such as the American Job Centers – I knew it was something like that – are workforce ENs. So, there are two different types, and those workforce ENs are clearly public organizations. They’re just there to help.

How do you start with one? We’ll show you a search engine in a few minutes to help you find who’s in your area that can serve you, but you can take your Ticket anywhere. This is like a shopping mall. It’s a shopping mall full of employment networks. And you can go to any store you want to and sit down and talk and say, “What do you have to offer me? This is what I want to do.” And then pick one. If you have a Ticket that’s available and that EN is really convinced you’re going to give this a good shot, then you started your journey. But don’t be afraid to go to a couple and talk to people. 

What kind of service area are they covering? Most are local or statewide. Some of them are growing and they’re covering multiple states, but they have offices close to you. And some are national and they deal with folks online. All of them work, it just depends on what you need and how comfortable you are working with somebody virtually or do you want to sit down in an office – I think you can do that nowadays – and talk to somebody directly. You pick the type of service provider that you want by making that decision.

They will have, as I said, in-person services, virtual, by phone or email. They might Zoom with you if you have the computer capacity to do that. And I think the pandemic’s shown us all that lots of things can happen very effectively across a computer screen. So, don’t be afraid of that, just do what’s right for you and how you feel comfortable doing your business. 

As I said, we can start at the very beginning with an EN identifying your work goals, and they may very well ask you about your skateboard. You never know what you have. You know, I can see a client – I remember clients who would come in with knitting needles sticking out of their bag because they figured they were coming to see a lawyer and they’re going to be sitting there and they got time to knit. That’s something that should spur somebody’s interest. That’s a hobby, but there are yarn stores out there which could provide a job, and owning one could provide a career. So, all you need to do is figure out what’s going on around you to know what you might be interested in.

They’re going to help you prepare your résumé and, more importantly, when you’re looking at your résumé, what are you going to say about the five years where you were not working or you were receiving disability benefits? That’s when you talk about your knitting needles. That’s where you talk about, “Yeah, well, my sister got a job and she has two young kids, and the job wasn’t paying enough so that she could have a babysitter, so I took care of those kids.” Huh, there’s a lot of responsibility and things you have to do taking care of kids. We can turn that into a positive statement about what you’ve been doing in the last five years.

Preparing for the interviews I think is critical. You should never be walking into an interview without some practicing because there are stock questions that everybody is going to ask, and it’s nice to know. It’s nice to know what those questions should be so that you can have the answers prepared. The request for reasonable accommodations we’ve talked about. And a lot of ENs nowadays have benefits planners right in house. So, it’s one-stop shopping. You get two team members for one visit.

State rehab agencies, they are the big agency with deep pockets. They are a big player in almost everybody’s life. And if you are in need of vocational rehabilitation or training and education, a community college degree, you know, a long-term program so that you can become a plumber or an electrician or something like that, the state VR agency is more likely than anybody else on your team to have enough money to support that goal. So, always think about that. Always think about that.

The state agency also can take your case as an employment network or use the old-fashioned method of what they call cost reimbursement. In any event, it doesn’t cost you anything. Remember, though, that some states have separate agencies for folks who are disabled and then one for folks who are blind or visually impaired, not that it’s going to make too much of a difference. It’s just going to – you’ll just experience one of those agencies referring you to the other if you contact the wrong one. Again, there’s no wrong doors here.

Partnership Plus, this is one of my favorite things. It really is. Partnership Plus, it happens by state. Most states, I think, are Partnership Plus now. Some are still not doing this, but I don’t know why. It provides for a great transition. If you go to school for two years at a community college and you’re getting a job as a bookkeeper, you know, the VR agency is going to watch and they’re going to look at your first three months of employment and, if you’re successful, terminate your case. That doesn’t mean you can’t continue with services. You can take that Ticket and assign it to an employment network who can give you now on-the-job supports or other assistance that you may need. It may not be until month five where you need to request an accommodation, you know, and you just realized that you were going to have to do that.

How do I do it? Well, there’s an employment network now that’s monitoring you, who can help you with that. It’s a great, great plan. So, you might want to talk to somebody. If you are going to be using the state VR agency, ask them about Partnership Plus and see what they can do for you so that they can protect some of that Ticket, and you’ll be able to access those on-the-job and long-term supports. All right. You can check out more about Partnership Plus. There’s a link in the web pod for you, but choosework.ssa.gov/library/partnership-plus. Really is a good program. 

Now, what about the WIPA, the Work Incentive Planning and Assistance? These people are all fully trained and they can provide you with free benefits counseling. The first thing that you need to know is what’s going to happen to your benefits if you begin working. And no, you’re not going to be thrown off the benefits roles just because you began working, but that money that you’re earning is going to be have an impact. It would be nice, if you’re an SSI recipient, to find out what that first 500-dollar paycheck is going to do to your benefits.

I’m going to give you a preview. It’s going to end happily. You’re going to have a whole lot more money than you had sitting on SSI. What’s it going to do to your Medicaid benefits? Nothing. Just nothing. You may get a different number in your code, but it’s going to have no impact on your access to healthcare. You will know when these changes are going to happen so that you can take proactive steps to prepare rather than reacting and getting a termination notice or a reduction in benefits and not expect it. This is a great service. I believe everybody on benefits who is planning a journey to work needs a benefits plan.

All of these work incentives. Social Security has a bunch of them. I think there are 26, 27, something like that. It’s a lot. All of them are going to have – it’s a work incentive, they’re going to have an incentive for you to work. We’re not going to count all of the earned income. We’re going to allow you – for some of your out-of-pocket medical costs, to deduct those, and make what counts even less. Lots of good things. If you’re an SSDI recipient, what if I told you, you could go to for nine months and earn as much as you want without any impact on your cash benefits or your healthcare. That’s pretty good. It gives you time to test the waters before there’s any impact on your benefits.

And explain the potential benefits of employment and dispelling those myths. That first myth that I mentioned, “If you go back to work, your benefits are going to be terminated,” is just wrong. “If you go back to work, you’re going to lose your healthcare.” I can’t explain to you how wrong that is. If you eventually, many years from now, work and earn enough that you lose your benefits, there’s going to be more than enough out there provided by employers to meet your needs. We can protect some of those special programs that you’re on, but a benefits plan is going to take care of you and make sure that everything that you need is going to be there for you for a good, long time.

And they can decide – or I’m sorry – help you decide if the services and supports from the Ticket Program might help. They’re going to have access to a computer system when you meet with them and they might be able to start your search. Let’s look at see who the employment networks are in your area, and determine if one of those is somebody that you want to talk with to get this started. Again, no obligation. I hope you get a referral like that from somebody. Whether you use it is up to you. It’s up to you and you’ve got time to think about it, if you choose to.

So, whom do the WIPA people serve? These planners require that you have a benefit, you receive a cash benefit from SSDI or SSI, and you have Medicare or Medicaid, depending on the benefit that you’re getting. You can be somebody who’s currently working or self-employed. So, if you are already working and you started a job, that doesn’t mean you can’t get benefits planning services. And you might want to sign up and get in line to get those services now.

You have a job offer pending, “I’m going to work December 1st, right after Thanksgiving. What’s going to happen?” Talk with a planner. Or you’re actively interviewing for jobs, and that’s defined as you had an interview in the last 30 days or you’ve got one scheduled within the next two weeks. There’s a special category for transition-age youth, ages 14 to 25, even in the very earliest stages of considering work. If we have a 14-year-old who wants to try work, they may be looking at a two-year wait until they’re 16 and they’re allowed to work, depending on what state they’re in. You can work with those. You can get some guidance so that that kid’s family knows what’s going to happen to the benefits and what’s going to happen to the healthcare of the family. We’re talking about a family when we’re talking about some of these transition-age kids.

So, benefits planning is very, very valuable. If you didn’t fall into one of those categories, there are other benefits planners out there who are also fully trained. Just get in contact with somebody to get their names. 

Now, the PABSS program, as I said, this is the free legal assistance unit. There’s one in every state. It’s generally called Disability Rights California, Disability Rights New Jersey, something like that. So, if you type in “Disability Rights” and your state name into Google, you’ll likely find the one near you. In smaller states, you know, in Massachusetts, we had an office in Boston and an office in Western Mass. In California, there is one main office in Sacramento but there are offices in all of the bigger cities in California.

So, what can the PABSS do for you? Give you legal support, here is what you need to provide to your employer if you’re asking for a reasonable accommodation, all the way to we can help you set up a meeting with your employer and discuss that with you. Or if you end up in a situation where the employer says “No, we don’t want to give you that accommodation, it’s going to be too expensive,” maybe you need an advocate to work with that employer and say, “Hey, this isn’t going to cost that much. It’s necessary, this is why.”

Going to resolve those employment-related conflicts, with employers, Social Security. What about an employment network that you’re having questions about? State agencies, the VR agencies, or the WIPA projects, anybody else, just know that they’re there when you need them. You have a lot of legal rights as an employee, we just don’t want them trampled on, and particularly when it comes to reasonable accommodation. Even in your college classes, if you’re going to school through VR and one of your professors doesn’t like that extra person who’s taking notes for you in the class, well, we’ve stepped in on those cases, too. Any disability-based legal issue that presents a barrier to employment. How does that impact somebody in community college? Well, they’re getting ready to become employed, that’s how. 

How do you find a service provider? Choosework.ssa.gov/findhelp. You can search by ZIP code. You can search by the services that are offered, the disability type. You don’t want somebody who works with people who are mentally impaired if you have a chronic back impairment. Just find somebody that treats and helps people that are like you. Languages spoken, would you prefer to get services in Spanish? How about Creole? We’ll find somebody who can do that through this search engine. Or the provider type, if you type in your ZIP code and hit Enter, you’re going to get all of them, but if you want to start with a benefits planner, just click the WIPA and you’ll find them easily enough. I’m on this site almost every day. Your other option is to start this by calling the Ticket to Work Help Line at that number, 1-866-968-7842 or 1-866-833-2967 for TTY users Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time. All right, Sarah.

SARAH>> All right. Thanks, Ray. We are going to dive right into the questions from the audience. The first one I have for you is, would this replace the BPQI?

RAY>> I think you might be talking about the My Social Security account. It wouldn’t replace the BPQI, but Social Security can take some time to get that to you. You should always request the BPQI. I got to tell you, it may be quicker for you to do that for your benefits planner rather than letting the benefits planner request that. But in order to start talking to you about how work might affect your benefits, if you have a My Social Security account, it’s going to give your benefits planner a lot of information to start with. If you’re not sure which benefit you receive, that’s going to tell you. That’s going to give the planner some good information so that we don’t have to confuse you.

I have had the bad experience of talking to somebody for hours about how benefits are going to impact their SSDI benefits only to find out that the person on the other end of the phone is really an SSI recipient. It’s really hard to erase everything I’ve said and start with a different story. So, I think that that My Social Security account is a good start and I think the BPQI is very critically important to your benefits planner, to be able to put an accurate plan together.

SARAH>> All right. Next question for you, Ray, “What should I do if my wages are not reported correctly?”

RAY>> If they’re not recorded correctly and you go into the My Social Security account, you will find a link so that you can question that. If somebody else is reporting for you while you’re working and something is wrong, you know, you could talk to the person who’s doing the reporting for you or you could go directly to Social Security to give them information to correct what has been reported. It can always be fixed, you just have to do it sooner rather than later. If I found out that my wages, that somebody typed in and put the decimal point someplace else, I would be really, really upset. I want that fixed. I would be doing that immediately upon checking. That’s why those accounts are really helpful. They will give you instructions as to how you contact Social Security and what information they need. That could be a tax return. It could be your pay stubs. Get that fixed right away.

SARAH>> All right. Thank you, Ray. Next question I have for you is, “I am waiting for my determination of my claim. Am I still able to receive a Ticket to Work?”

RAY>> Not until the claim has been processed and payment issues. You have to have a cash benefit. You have to have been determined to be disabled by Social Security and then you have to want to go to work. So, you’d have to wait until payment begins.

SARAH>> All right, Ray, I have one more question for you before we move on. How does Partnership Plus work with follow-along services through VR? Wouldn’t the Ticket be unassigned to the VR at that time?

RAY>> Well, the Ticket is never assigned to VR. It’s in a special status called in-use so that everybody knows you’re working, you get some protections that way, and you’re working towards getting that job, towards that employment goal. Once you leave VR and they close your case because you’re been a success, beyond the follow-along services, they could be provided by VR but they would be administered, I guess, or you would be working with an EN to get those services in place. If you needed a job coach, VR could provide one for 90 days, but what happens after that if you don’t feel comfortable losing your job coach and you want to maybe work for another month or so? The EN can help you put another job coach or hopefully the same one in place. And the Ticket would then be assigned to the employment network. I think I answered that one.

SARAH>> Yes, you definitely did, Ray. I appreciate your response. With that, I am going to turn it back to you to discuss service providers and move forward with the presentation. Thanks, Ray.

RAY>> Thank you. All right. So, working with service providers. You know, you got to remember that you’re the boss. You know, you may have four, you could have five team members here, and you are leading the charge here. We’ll help guide you. We’ll make suggestions, but all of the decisions are yours.

As you talk to providers and you’re searching for them, think about these questions. Do you serve other people who have the same disability that I have, or something similar? Remember, I said you want to find somebody who works with people who are like you. So, if you have that chronic back impairment, don’t go to an EN that specializes in mental impairments just because a friend of yours or somebody you know really likes that person. They may not have the skills that you need to get back to work.

What types of jobs have you found for other people with similar experiences and skillsets that I have? That’s an important question. If I’m going to trust you to help me along this journey, how successful are you working with people like me? Where have they found jobs? How much are they earning? How long have some of them been working? All of those are very fair questions. You want people who have experience, good experience.

Do you work with clients in person, over the phone, or virtually? You might find that out real quickly because you may be talking on the phone with somebody because they’re four states away, not that that’s a bad thing but they’re not likely going to be working with you in person. Is there someone local to you? Do they have in-person office hours, particularly now? Or can they meet with you someplace else? Could they come to your home? All of those are fair questions.

And what happens after I assign my Ticket to you? They’re going to tell you about a process, and it’s not a process that you can avoid, of putting together a plan, of making sure everybody agrees to it, signs it, and gets it to Social Security for approval. That process is necessary. Eventually you’ll get a letter that says your Ticket has been assigned to ABC employment network. That is a necessary part of this.

What services do you need to achieve your work goals? When you’re talking to a provider or somebody, you’re interviewing a provider, make sure you talk about résumés. Do I need a résumé for some of these jobs? What kind of résumé do I need? What about that interview? Have you never had an interview before? It’s not necessary to get a job. You know, my first job didn’t require an interview. It required an exit real quick, though. What about – so I want to practice interviewing. Does somebody in your office do that?

What about benefits counseling? Where do I find a benefits planner? Do you have somebody on staff or do I need to go to another agency? If I do, can you tell me where they are and help me make contact? How does that provider help you achieve your work goal? Are they getting you equipment? Are they getting you training? And now that I have the training, how do I progress from somebody who is fully trained into a worker doing a specific job? And what kind of ongoing follow-along services are you able to provide for me? I want to know all of that before I choose who is going to be my team member. So, keep all of this stuff in mind.

Did the staff seem friendly? Did they appear to be excited about working with you and willing to work with you? Does the employment network or the state VR agency provide everything you need? If they don’t, can they get them? How does the service provider compare with other service providers you’re considering? You know, I want the nice people. I want the ones who seem excited about me going back to work. I don’t want somebody going through the motions.

Do you know anybody else who’s worked with this particular provider? Talking to other people who have gone through this and you might be able to get a reference from an employment network. Who else have you worked with in my situation? Is there somebody I can talk to? What was that person’s experience? If they had a good experience and I like these people, I may very well pick them. Just do your homework and remember these are all fair considerations and very fair questions to ask of any employment provider because this is a big deal. This is a big deal.

Now, what about your path to success? Everyone’s path to financial independence is going to be different. Your financial independence may cost more than my financial independence. When do we get to that point where we’re expected to be independent of benefits and healthcare? We need to understand that. What will be there? No benefits, but I’ve got more money through earning. No healthcare, but I have access to an employer-provided plan. Does it meet all of your medical needs? Well, almost. Well, let’s see if we can get Medicare or Medicaid to provide some of those other needs for a little bit longer. 

Identify your work goals. Create a plan. I love plans. You know, it’s that grocery list thing again. If I write things down – you know, I have a grocery list every morning for work. What do I need to accomplish today? Check it off. Check it off. Good. Two things down. I can have lunch. Check it off. Check it off. I have accomplished what I wanted to today.

Understand your responsibilities for reporting your work and your earnings. That’s a critical part of your job. You’re going to be needing to make reports to Social Security, sometimes every month. How much money did I earn this month? Is there anything else that happened that might impact my benefits? Making sure you understand your responsibility and how to report. You can do it lots of ways. You can do it through a My Social Security account. You can do it on a cell phone. You can call the 1-800 number. It’s a different 1-800 number for Social Security reporting in order to get that done. Just follow the plan. Once it’s all in writing, once it’s all jotted down on a piece of paper by you, you just follow it. That’s all.

So, additional resources. Excuse me. Let’s move in and see what we’ve got. Choosing the right EN for you, this is a really critical choice when you’re making a decision about the state VR agency or a private employment network and you’ve got three employment networks, how do you pick the right one? So, if you’re looking to get that right person or agency, you need to look at questions that can help you choose that provider, an explanation of the process. What are you doing when you interview this person? You’re shopping. I’m going to give this person my Ticket. What happens? An explanation of that process and what to expect, this is a great worksheet, guys. If you have the ability to download it and keep it or print out a copy of it, do that, https://bit.ly/choosing-EN. Just some tips to how you might want to approach this.

You need help finding a job? There’s nothing wrong with finding your own, you know. If you find your own and you’re starting it December 1st, you are eligible then for benefits planning. You are eligible then to look for an EN to help support that job. Nothing wrong with that.

So, how do you get started? We can search and connect with the Ticket Program service, connect with resources that can help you advance your employment journey. There’s a whole Find a Job link for you here at choosework.ssa.gov/find-a-job/index.html. If you’re not sure what’s out there, use that and take a look, and just search through and see what might fit you. 

Get updates. You’re going to want to learn a little bit more about some of our WISE events. Subscribe at http://bit.ly/WISEsubscribe and you’ll get notices, when is the next event going to occur. Sign up. Come sit down and talk with us again. If you’re interested in learning more about the Ticket Program, employment service providers or other topics we can talk about today, subscribe to the Choose Work blog and you’ll get weekly updates sent to your inbox at http://bit.ly/CW_subscribe. A good thing to get information from them and there’s lots of good stuff in there, including some absolutely wonderful success stories. Okay, Sarah.

SARAH>> All right. Great. Let’s get into these questions. The first one I have for you is, “I know I want to work but I’m not sure if I am physically and mentally ready. Is it better to try finding a job with Ticket to Work or should I wait?”

RAY>> I think that is perfectly up to you. That depends on your situation. If you – I think the one thing that you’re going to want to do if you’re going to start working, you need benefits planning services. So, contact the WIPA. Find out what will happen if you work ten hours a week, what happens if you work 15 or 20, so that you’ll know when your benefits are going to be affected. If you want to start with an EN like that and you’re not sure about your capacity, then, by all means, there are ENs out there who can start with you at a very low level of work, and watch and help as your progress and your capacity to work grows. Only you can tell whether you’re ready to start this journey, but just know that there are people ready and able to help you once you make that decision. Nothing wrong with sticking your toe in the water before you jump in.

SARAH>> Excellent advice, Ray. All right. I have another question for you. “One of my goals is to get some additional training. Will my benefits stop if I go back to school?”

RAY>> Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There’s nothing wrong with seeking training and more education that will allow you to work. I hope that, you know, with the work incentives we’ve been talking about and all the services we’re providing, I hope you at least have the comfort of understanding that Social Security is not going to let you take a step towards work and pull the rug out from under you because you are trying to improve your situation by going to school so that you can get a job. Social Security is here to make sure that happens and that you actually complete that. All of these players that we’ve talked about, state VR, employment networks, benefits planners, and PABSS are there to make sure everything stays in place.

SARAH>> All right. Next question I have for you, Ray, is, “Can I change the service provider that I am working with?”

RAY>> Absolutely. That Ticket is yours. Even if it’s been assigned to somebody, it’s yours. For any reason, you can unassign that Ticket. That’s also another process. If you’re going to unassign that Ticket, you need to let your provider know that you’re taking the Ticket back, you’re not going to work with them anymore, and then you need to find another one. Your protections that you get from continuing disability reviews are going to stay in place for 90 days. That sounds like a long time, but in order to find another employment network, if that’s the provider, and get a plan in place and get that plan to Social Security can take some time. So, you want to do that, make that new connection as soon as possible.

It could be for any reason whatsoever. Maybe the first job that you find, that this employment network has for you is flipping burgers at McDonalds and that’s not what you had in mind. You know, you wanted a different job. You wanted a different career. How this happens, you don’t know, but that’s enough to make you say, “I need to find another employment network who can get me back on the path to where I want to go.” That’s fine. Remember, voluntary and free. We do what you want or you just take your Ticket and go someplace else.

SARAH>> All right. Thank you, Ray. Next question I have is, “How can a Ticket to Work service provider help me once I’ve started working?”

RAY>> You know, in lots of ways. Going to work, it’s a big transition. I think any of us that have even changed employers, that’s a big change. Maybe you need someone to talk with about the change from disability benefits to work. How are you dealing with people on the workplace? Are you servicing customers and that gets a little bit nerve-wracking, and maybe I need an extra break, and how do I explain to my brand-new boss that I can’t do what they just gave me a job to do? Well, you might be able to do it with reasonable accommodations, and that doesn’t have to be a scary thing. You can get an employment network to talk to about supporting you with follow-along services and when that question comes up about “I can’t do this, I need an extra break,” that’s a reasonable accommodation. Let’s talk to your employer about that, or let me help you determine how that should be done.

What about job coaching? You know, that three months that you got from the VR agency, you know, and then nothing, it might be too fast and too soon. If you think maybe a half-time job coach, you know, half of the number of hours that you were getting from VR would be a good thing to transition to, let’s get an EN, the follow-along services to do that. So, there are many, many ways for that next several months, you could access services, and they’re all available. Do you need another benefits summary to talk to your benefits – your WIPA person again to see is everything looking okay? I’m making progress but some things don’t seem right. Can we do this again? Yeah, let’s update that plan. So, those ongoing supports are going to continue to be available to you if you still got that Ticket going.

SARAH>> All right. Next question for you is, “Can my state VR agency or EN help me go to school or get necessary training for work?”

RAY>> Sure can. It depends on what kind of school you’re looking at. You know, an employment network is not the same size agency as the state VR agency. So, if you’re looking for a two-year degree or four-year degree, my guess is that’s where you want to shop and that’s where you want to get services. An employment network could certainly help you put in place loans, scholarship applications, any kind of grant awards to help you get through school as well. So, it really depends on what you’re looking at and how much this is going to cost.

Simply a certification course, you need to be certified in Word and in Google, you know, Google certifications are big in order to get a job, an EN can probably handle that kind of training. It doesn’t mean you’re trading one for the other. Remember what I said, if the state VR agency gets you through school, then the ENs can help you make that progress in the job search and getting a job. But, you know, definitely the two- and four-year school tuition are going to be state VR rather than an EN.

SARAH>> All right, Ray, next question I have for you is, “How do you know if you need an EN versus a VR?”

RAY>> Well, I think that depends on what services you’re looking for. If you’re looking to be rehabilitated for employment and you need some medical services or medical equipment, that’s likely to be the state agency. If you’ve been injured and you’ve lost the use of your arm, how can I go back to the job that I had? Well, maybe there are prosthetic devices. Maybe there’s a piece of medical equipment that will allow you to do your job with one arm. That is going to be a VR-type service because those medical devices and durable medical equipment and that stuff is very expensive.

An EN – and they are fabulous, I got to tell you, there’s nothing like either one of these people or agencies. An EN can also do some of that, but what the EN might do if you know what kind of equipment you may need or how your computer needs to be adapted for you, the EN can then likely work with an agency like VR or other vendors to get that equipment for you. But if you don’t quite know what you need, that’s going to have to be an evaluation and it’s going to be done most likely by the state rehab agency. I know it’s confusing but it makes sense once you start doing it.

SARAH>> All right. Excellent advice, Ray. I have another question for you. “Do other services providers also offer benefits counseling?”

RAY>> The state VR agencies do, some of them. It depends on where your state is. You know, you can do that finder we told you – Find Help and find out if a state agency is providing benefits planning services. Lots of the ENs do; not all of them, but every state does have at least one. Some bigger states have more programs and you can use that Find Help site to find your local benefits planning services. It’s very convenient to get them from the same place, but if that’s not possible, there’s seriously no issue with having an EN and a needing to find the local WIPA agency. Again, all of your team members should have that information so that if you decide – if you’re talking with an EN and interviewing with an EN and you decide you need benefits planning services and they don’t do that, they should be able to get you in contact with your local WIPA program real quick.

SARAH>> All right. Thanks, Ray. I have another question for you. Can a Ticket to Work service provider help me finish my education or get training?

RAY>> Yep. Absolutely, either one. We’ve talked about that a lot. If you haven’t finished your education and you want to go back and start it, my guess is you could work with either an employment network or a state VR agency, depending on how much of that education you need to finish. But, yeah, all of – either one, state agency or VR, could help you do that, or to get training. Again, if you want to become an electrician, you know, if you were working with a plumber and now you decide, “Okay, I think if I had the right training, I could be a plumber,” by all means. I think either an EN or state VR, depending on what was more convenient and who you choose to work with.

SARAH>> All right, Ray, I have another question for you. What happens if I don’t make timely progress? Am I no longer able to receive services from my EN?

RAY>> That depends on the EN. If there’s a reason why you didn’t make timely progress and that is an exacerbation of your disability, most likely, everything will stay intact because, if you have the intention of getting back on track with your plan and being able to make timely progress, everything’s going to be fine. When you don’t make timely progress, the only thing that you will not have is the continuing disability review protection. The relationship with the EN does not depend on that initially. If you’re going to be making untimely progress forever, then we might have a situation where the EN decides that they’re not going to be able to work with you, a state VR will close your case, but it really depends on the circumstances. What was the reason? Why did you not make timely progress? If it’s a good reason, I don’t think it’s going to interrupt much. If you just decided, I don’t want to play this game anymore, then, you know, the EN, the VR agency is probably not going to want to play the game, either.

SARAH>> All right, Ray. Thank you very much for your thorough responses to all of the questions sent in by our participants. Although we do have more questions for you, we are going to go ahead and stop questions for today and move forward. I want to thank you for being with us today, Ray, and sharing your knowledge of the Ticket to Work Program.

RAY>> Thank you, Sarah. It’s always a pleasure to be with you.

SARAH>> Of course. All right. Have a good day, Ray.

RAY>> You, too.

SARAH>> Before we wrap up today, here are a few ways to connect with the Ticket to Work team. You can connect by the Help Line at 1-866-968-7842, or for TTY, 1-866-833-2967. And that’s available Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time, or you can visit the Ticket to Work website at choosework.ssa.gov anytime. You can also find us on social media or subscribe to the blog and email updates by visiting choosework.ssa.gov/contact/index.html. This link appears in the Web Links pod under Ticket to Work Contact Information.

Get advice and encouragement, and also read success stories from people who have had success with help from the Ticket to Work Program. To receive text messages from the Ticket Program, text TICKET, T-I-C-K-E-T, to 474747. Standard messaging rates may apply and you may opt out at any time.

Please join us for our next WISE webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM Eastern Time. Although we are taking a break from WISE webinars for the month of December, the Ticket to Work content is available on our YouTube channel and you can find past WISE webinars on demand. That link can be found in the Web Links pod. Registration for the January WISE webinar will be open in early 2022. To register online, you can go to choosework.ssa.gov/wise or you can call 1-866-968-7842, or for TTY, 1-866-833-2967.

Your feedback is very important to us. It helps us plan for future webinars. Please provide your feedback and tell us what you think about today’s webinar by taking our survey. To take our survey, you can follow the link that will pop up after the webinar or visit the Ticket to Work website to complete the survey. The survey can also be found in the Web Links pod. 

Thank you again for attending to learn about the Ticket Program. Please take this opportunity to reach out to any of the resources we discussed today and take the next step on your career path. This concludes today’s webinar. Have a wonderful evening.